Edinburgh Napier University

  Background: A multidisciplinary team at Edinburgh Napier University are evaluating the Macmillan Cancer Support funded Transforming Care after Treatment programme (TCAT) in Scotland which stablished 25 local projects, each with different local approaches to improving the aftercare of people living with and beyond cancer.
A substantial component of the programme evaluation is to support individual projects and evaluate change by contributing to a programme of education and support to increase the capacity of local cancer nurses and professionals to conduct robust service evaluations, ensure consistent data collection across the programme and maximise impact on policy decisions.
Discussion: Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University are ensuring and enhancing local evidence from TCAT test sites which has included:
• Facilitation of four evaluation practice workshops.
• Establishment of a support/advice mechanism with a named point of contact in the evaluation team for each local project.
• Face-to-face meetings with project leaders to understand local evaluation methods and approaches.
• Specification of minimum data for all local evaluations.
• Provision of local reporting guidance and report template.
• Provision of patient/service user feedback survey tools and analysis of returns.
• Review of potential for health economic analysis of each local project.
By working to ensure and enhance local evidence of change and improvement, we are co-producing valuable data to inform evidence-based practice, developing research awareness and skills among cancer nurses and creating and disseminating a wide knowledge base that is influencing practice.
Conclusion: The production and dissemination of high-quality practice and service evaluations is key to influencing policy and political decision making. This presentation will discuss how the evaluation activities of local practitioners can be enhanced and sustained. The challenges and successes of smaller service evaluations influencing wider practice and decision making will be illustrated using case studies of two projects.