Domiciliary Care Project

 

Participant Information Sheet for Homecare Agencies and Housing with Care Schemes

DomCare: The Benefits and Costs of Domiciliary Care

 

Researchers at the University of Kent would like to invite you to take part in this study exploring the benefits and costs of domiciliary care.

To conduct the study, University of Kent (as the Data Controller) has partnered with Ipsos (as the Data Processor), a specialist independent research agency, to collect data on its behalf. Further study partners include King’s College London, Skills for Care, the Homecare Association, and the Housing Learning and Improvement Network.

The study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme (project reference NIHR207275) and has received favourable ethical opinion by the School of Social Sciences Staff Review Committee, University of Kent.

 

What is this study about?

Care provided in peoples’ own homes (known as home care or domiciliary care) is becoming an increasingly important part of social care services. Home care services can, however, vary dramatically in quality, price, availability, and the way they are monitored for quality and safety.

The study aims to provide a better understanding of the value of home care. By ‘value’ we mean whether home care services support people and their families to live as they wish and to do the things they’d like to do. We will also compare home care to the care received in housing with care settings and care homes.

Due to lack of suitable data for such a study, we need to collect new data from both homecare recipients (i.e., clients of homecare agencies and housing with care) and their registered care locations.

We expect research findings to inform policy decision-making on commissioning of public services, the development of guidance about home care options, and support individuals and families purchasing domiciliary care to make more informed decisions. The results ought to help both those working in and those being supported by domiciliary care.

 

Why have I been invited to take part in this study?

You have been invited because your CQC registered location is providing homecare (e.g., visiting or live-in care) or housing with (in-house) care services (e.g., retirement living, extra care housing, or assisted living) to adults (aged 18 or over) either in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, East Midlands or Yorkshire and the Humber.

This information is meant for local (or regional) managers in the above areas. Please take time to consider the information provided carefully. If you manage housing with care and do not also oversee care management, please forward on to the CQC registered care location so they can decide if they wish to take part in the study.

If you have any questions or are unsure if you are eligible, you can contact the University of Kent research team at: DomCareProject@kent.ac.uk

 

What are the benefits of taking part?

There are several benefits to taking part in the study. For instance, you will be able to demonstrate participation in research aimed to improve clients’ care outcomes and quality of life. This could have a positive impact on CQC quality rating in a future CQC assessment.

Additionally, we offer participating locations benchmarking briefs illustrating how the quality-of-life of their clients compares to that of other similar providers in the region or nationally. These briefs will provide insight into areas of quality-of-life your clients score particularly well on, as well as other areas which could be improved. Quality-of-life scores will be adjusted for differences in clients’ care needs to make sure we only compare similar people. Please note that benchmarking briefs will only be available to locations who have 15 or more clients who respond to our survey in order to protect anonymity and ensure the reliability of results.

The study will also provide wider benefits by improving decision-making around provision and commissioning of home care, and more informed decisions for people and their families purchasing care.

Participation in the study will require some of your or your staff’s time. We have designed the study in collaboration with care managers to minimise the workload required, and offer financial compensation for taking part in the study. Please see What would taking part involve? for further details.

Support is also available through the NIHR Research Delivery Network.

 

Does this registered location have to take part?

It is your choice whether you wish to take part in the study or not. Even if you say yes now, you can change your mind at any time, without giving any reasons.

 

What would taking part involve?

If you would like to support this research, and take part in this study:

1. Please fill in the registration/consent form (link at the end of the webpage). This will allow us to share your name and contact details with colleagues at Ipsos who will carry out a data collection on our behalf, including information about your registered location and your clients.
2. In September 2025, Ipsos will invite you to participate in a short online survey through which we will collect some information about your location’s characteristics (see below under What information is collected?).
3. In February 2026, Ipsos will send you survey packs to distribute to all persons you support that have capacity to consent. These will be in pre-stamped envelopes (i.e., there will be no financial cost to you to post them). You just have to add your clients’ addresses and post or hand them out. By distributing the survey packs, you will help us to reach out to your clients without sharing their personal data with us (i.e., GDPR compliant).
4. We also ask you that between February and April 2026 you remind your clients through internal communication (e.g., newsletter adverts or in person, by care workers) to complete the surveys distributed on our behalf.

To cover your and/or your staff’s time with completing the above tasks, Ipsos will provide financial compensation as follows:

• A flat payment of £158 for your time to familiarise yourself with the study, complete the care provider survey, and send survey reminders to your clients after you have distributed the survey packs.
• A payment of £5.20 per posted survey pack to the persons you support. You will be asked to keep a record of the people you sent survey packs to for auditing purposes.

For example, if you support 50 people (with mental capacity to consent) and distribute survey packs to them, the total compensation for participating in the study will be £158 + 50x£5.20 = £418.

If you lack staff capacity at your registered location, we may also get support for you from the NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network team for completing the required tasks.

For further information please contact the University of Kent research team at: DomCareProject@kent.ac.uk

 

What information is collected?

All information about you and your registered location collected in this is study is provided directly by you through the registration/consent form and the survey.

The survey will ask questions about:

• the type of service(s) your location offers;
• the geographic area your location provides services to;
• the sector/ownership of your location;
• the group or franchise you are part of (if applicable);
• the number of employees at your location;
• the contract type care workers are employed on;
• the salary range you pay care workers;
• the location’s latest CQC rating and last inspection date;
• the total number of people you support; and
• the number of people you support that self-fund their care.

In the survey packs sent to you in February 2026, we will include a survey for your clients. They will be asked questions about: the suitability of their home and access to their local area; the care they receive and the impact it has on them; their health and healthcare access; and their characteristics (e.g., age, gender and ethnicity) and household circumstances.

Care recipients’ questionnaires have been developed with input from people with lived experience of care services and are accessible to people receiving care services. We also aim to accommodate your clients’ various needs, so that as many as possible can participate (assuming they have mental capacity to consent). We will offer them options to respond to the survey either by post or online (with help, if needed, from a family member, friend or carer) or contact the research team to arrange a telephone, online or face-to-face interview.

All answers will be treated as confidential. The information provided by you will not be shared with your clients or vice versa, nor will it be shared with other persons or organisations outside the research team.

 

Who will my personal data be shared with?

Personal data, such as name and contact details, collected by the University of Kent will be shared only with Ipsos for data collection purposes.

Any information collected by Ipsos through the care provider survey allowing to identify your registered location will only be shared with the University of Kent team.

 

How will my information be used?

Information shared by you in the care provider survey will be anonymised and linked to the results provided by your clients.

Ipsos will provide the University of Kent team with ‘keys’ that will allow the identification of your registered location for the purpose of offering you benchmarking briefs as a ‘thank you’ for participating in the study (see What are the benefits of taking part? for further detail)

Research findings from this research will be published in reports and academic journals and used in presentations by the University of Kent researchers in collaboration with project partners. You, your registered location or the people you support will not be identifiable in any publications or presentations.

 

How will my information be stored and how long will my data be held for?

The University of Kent and Ipsos will keep your personal data securely and in confidence, in accordance with their Privacy Notice and with the terms of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The University of Kent and Ipsos will securely remove your personal data and information identifying your registered location and the persons you support from their systems no later than six months after project completion. The project is currently planned to be completed on 30 November 2027.

The anonymised dataset will be kept indefinitely for research purposes by the University of Kent and potentially be shared with other researchers for use in research projects beyond this study. It will not be possible to identify you, your registered location or individual clients from the anonymised data.

 

What is the purpose of this Participant Information Sheet?

This Participant Information Sheet is provided to meet the obligations as set out in Articles 13 and 14 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

 

What is the legal basis for processing my data?

Where we use your personal data to conduct this study, our lawful basis is:

• Article 6 (1) (a) Consent: “The data subject has given consent for one or more specific purposes.”
• Article 6 (1) (e) Public Task: “Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.”

 

What are your data protection rights?

You have rights over your personal data under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the supervisory authority for data protection legislation, and maintains a full explanation of these rights on their website: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/

 

Privacy policies of other websites

The University of Kent Research Participant Privacy Notice explains how we deal with your information: https://media.www.kent.ac.uk/se/40432/ResearchParticipantUniversityLevelPrivacyNotice.pdf

It also explains how you can ask to view, change or remove your information from our records.

 

How do I complain?

If you wish to exercise your data protection rights or wish to make a complaint, the contact details for the data controller’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) are:

dataprotection@kent.ac.uk

If you have any questions or concerns about the way the University has used your data, or wish to exercise any of your rights, please consult our website: https://www.kent.ac.uk/about/assurance-and-data-protection

 

How to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office

If you believe that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. You may also contact them to seek independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing.

Website: www.ico.org.uk

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this information sheet.

 

If you would like to take part in the study, please fill out this registration/consent form:

https://universityofkent.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9ZyIVNDeNn5SQjs

 

 

Participant Information Sheet v2.0 from 15.05.2025