Fostering and sustaining UK, multidisciplinary, family-focused care across the life-course

A White Rose collaboration in long-term condition management.

Lead Institution: Leeds:  Professor Veronica Swallow
Sheffield: Professor Penny Curtis
York: Professor Yvonne Birks
Care of persons with long term conditions (LTCs) is a key health-policy priority.  LTCs account for 70% of health/social-care spending.  In Better Value in the NHS (2015) the Kings Fund predicts that improving service quality and cost-effectiveness for people with LTCs will remain critical for the foreseeable future.
International evidence indicates that LTCs in early-life can affect individuals’ health and wellbeing across the life-course. Around 15 million people in England live with one or more  LTCs, family members may contribute to their care and one person’s LTC can impact on the whole family’s health and wellbeing. Families respond differently to LTCs but family response is closely related to clinical outcomes.
In 2013 the Chief Medical Officer urged professionals to ‘think family at every interaction’ to ensure family-health and well-being is central to multi-professional practice, and to develop innovative tools to support/promote this. Research indicates that family relationships have the potential for health-promoting effects, yet family-focussed care across the life-course is not central to the NHS. Little is known about: how UK health and social-care professionals understand family-support; how family-life, family-health and social-care intersect; or what tools/interventions exist to support and promote family-focussed care for those with LTCs across the life-course.
For more information on this project please see
Family Focused Care

Access the report the expert workshop:
Access the power point presentation from the expert workshop:
FAMILY FOCUSED CARE Workshop Report  opens in pdf.

Event 7th November 2016  – Fostering and sustaining UK, multidisciplinary, family-focussed care across the life-course: A White Rose collaboration in long term condition management
Access the power point presentation from the expert workshop:

  1. The empirical evidence for family focused care

Professor Linda Shields, Charles Sturt University, Australia
B Østergaard Family Nursing in Denmark Nov2016 Dementia Symposium Poster Knafl & Van Riper Family Ties- Building a Research Cooperative Nov2016 Knafl & Van Riper Practical Tips and Useful Resources for Family Researchers Nov2016 LShields Evidence for FCC_ Nov2016

  1. Developing a protocol of a Systematic Review of Family focused care in the UK

Dr Joanna Smith, University o of Leeds
JSmith Fostering & sustaining UK FFC across the life-course Nov2016

  1. Family Research: Conceptual and Methodological Issues

Professor Kathy Knafl and Professor Marcia van Riper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Knafl & Van Riper Practical Tips and Useful Resources for Family Researchers Nov2016

  1. Developing family – cardiology –  nursing in Denmark – Dr Birte Østergaard

Dr Ostergaard, University of Southern Denmark
B Østergaard Family Nursing in Denmark Nov2016

  1. Using Conceptual Frameworks to Guide Collaborative Research Endeavors

Professor Kathy Knafl and Professor Marcia van Riper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Knafl & Van Riper Family Ties- Building a Research Cooperative Nov2016
Our White Rose Collaboration was featured in the Journal of Family Nursing, in the February 2017 issue, click here  or follow this link  http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1074840717690252 to see the full article.
Other members associated with this collaboration
Dr Joanna Smith, Leeds,
Professor Bryony Beresford, York
Dr David Saltiel, Leeds
Professor Angela Tod, Sheffield
Dr Linda Milnes, Leeds
Dr Alison Rodriguez, Leeds
Dr Gemma Spiers, York
Dr Hannah Fairbrother, Sheffield
Dr Parveen Ali, Sheffield
Dr Jill Thompson, Sheffield
Professor Sue Kirk, Manchester




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