Dual expert carers
Overview
Older people living with frailty often experience uncertainty about how their health will change over time, making it difficult to ensure they get the right help at the right time. Family carers have been identified as important for accessing and organising this help.
This study has two aims. The first is to understand dual expert family carers’ experiences and consequent decision-making processes at a point of change in the condition of an older person living with frailty. The second aim is to facilitate the co-design of a set of guiding principles by participants, to inform a prototype tool for family carers to assist decision-making. This involved participants taking part in one-to-one interviews followed by participation in a facilitated online focus group.
If you wish to find out more about this study, please contact Richard Green.
Resources
This resource was created with participants from the Dual Experts study and refined through a co-production session with unpaid carers and unpaid carer representatives across London and the South East, to share practical tips from experienced unpaid carers for older people. We hope that this resource will support unpaid carers to be proactive in considering some of the things that can arise when caring for an older person and ways they might approach these.
Team
Study team
Professor Caroline Nicholson
Professor of Palliative Care and Ageing
Biography
Caroline Nicholson is a clinical academic nurse who champions Palliative Care For ALL. She holds a chair in Palliative Care and Ageing within the School of Health Science, University of Surrey and a Visiting professor at St Christopher’s Hospice London.
Caroline qualified as a Registered Nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital London. She worked as a specialist Palliative Care Nurse before undertaking a combined BSc (Hons) in Community Nursing DN/HV Certs at King’s College London. She went on to an MSc in Medical Anthropology at Brunel University London before completing her PhD at City University, London in 2009. She is a FHEA from the Institute of Education and holds a diploma in psycho-dynamic approaches to old age from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London
Caroline leads a research programme focussed supporting older people and their carers to live AND die well over a life long-lived. https://www.surrey.ac.uk/living-and-dying-well-research She is particularly interested in the transitions that occurs in the last phase of life and supporting integrative services and structures to enable care closer to home. She has published extensively in the field of frailty including co-editing the BGS guidance on end of life and frailty for clinicians across the multi-disciplinary team. She is a core re member of the European Association for Palliative Care Reference group on Ageing and Palliative Care and Faculty member of the International Fellowship in Palliative Care. She has a long-held interest in the experiences and palliative care needs of older people and their families and is co-lead in End of life Care for the British Geriatrics Society.
Dr Richard Green
Surrey Future Fellow
Biography
Richard was awarded a prestigious Surrey Future Fellowship in April 2023 to develop an ambitious interdisciplinary programme of research focused on understanding and addressing complex challenges in health and social care using artificial intelligence, systems thinking, and simulation methods. His current work explores how agent-based modelling (ABM) and participatory approaches can be used to investigate under-examined areas of care provision and access, primary, community, palliative, unpaid, and integrated care contexts.
Richard’s research vision is shaped by a commitment to advancing qualitative and mixed-method research that accounts for the complexity of care systems and the lived experiences of older adults and their caregivers. He is particularly interested in how simulation methods can support both research and policy.
Richard completed a BSc in Criminology and Sociology at Royal Holloway University and then an MSc in Social Research Methods at the University of Surrey, before completing his PhD in Sociology in partnership with both universities on an ESRC studentship. His PhD explored men's experiences following treatment for prostate cancer in a qualitative interviewing study. Before joining the PALLUP study, Richard worked at the Office for National Statistics as a Senior Research Officer, working on facilitating research access to secure data for research that serves the public good.
Research groups and centres
Our research is supported by research groups and centres of excellence.