The Evaluation of the Major Grants Programme:
Carers of those who are terminally ill
Lay people who take on unpaid caring roles in relation to a person facing the end of life are defined as carers. According to the General Household Survey conducted in 2000, there are approximately seven million carers in the UK. Increasingly, people with advanced disease are being looked after by their families, friends or neighbours as well as the health professionals.
It is well recognised that carers need support in order to carry out the caring role and maintain their own well being. In recent years, a lot of schemes/services for carers have been provided by various organisations in the UK; but little is known about the views of carers who have accessed these schemes/services in terms of their effectiveness and benefits, i.e. if carers’ needs have been met.
Help the Hospices is a national charity organisation. Its role is to support the vital work of hospices in caring for people with advanced disease and providing support for their families/friends. Help the Hospices has funded a few organisations through its major grants programme to provide support services to carers of those who have advanced disease. It has also commissioned a Lancaster University research team led by Professor Sheila Payne, the UK’s first professor of Hospice Studies, to conduct an evaluation of the major grants awarded for support services for the carers of the terminally ill.
Aims and objectives of the study:
- To assess whether the funded projects meet the carers’ needs.
- To evaluate the organisations’ experience of delivering the services to carers.
Research design and method:
A formative evaluation methodology is used which focuses on the processes, structure and outcomes for funded projects. Data collection and analysis includes:
- semi-structured interviews with key workers at both the beginning and end of the project;
- documentary analysis of the participating organisations’ own project reports to Help the Hospices;
- three to four organisational case studies including analysis of data from a carer questionnaire survey exploring carers’ views as service recipients.
Proposed duration: 4 years - 1st April, 2005 – 2009
Final Report
The final report can be downloaded by clicking here. (Please note that the file is a 1Mb PDF).
