IMPACT (‘Improving Adult Care Together’) is the new UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, funded by the ESRC and the Health Foundation. Led by the Universities of Birmingham, Sheffield, Stirling, Ulster and Cardiff, together with a series of national policy and practice partners and user-led organisations, we will have up to £15 million to invest in helping evidence of what works make a difference to services, and hence to people’s lives. We want to make sure that we focus this investment on what would make the most difference and provide the most help and support for front-line services and practice.

We want to hear from anyone involved with or connected to adult social care as we develop and test our ideas – but we’re particularly interested in hearing from people who don’t always get chance to take part in these debates. This might include:

• People who use care and support services
• User-led and community organisations
• Groups that work with and for people whose voices are seldom heard
• People who look after someone else – ‘carers’
• People who work in front-line adult social care (including in small/local third sector organisations, social enterprises, mutuals, micro-enterprises etc)
• People from black and minority ethnic communities

We’d be really grateful if you any colleagues connected to adult social care could complete a short online survey (approx. 10 mins) to help shape our work: https://bham.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9tnuKolsBb3OfGu. This is available in English, Welsh and five other common languages, as well as in an easy read version.

If IMPACT is of interest more generally, there’s further information via https://more.bham.ac.uk/impact/, as well as a recent article in Community Care https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2021/06/21/bringing-evidence-front-line-adult-social-care/.

Jon Glasby, University of Birmingham and IMPACT Director [email protected]