Bridges research and development projects

People 1st: One of the largest projects completed by Bridges across all stroke and neurological services in the East of England

Completed in 2019 and funded by Health Education England, and independently evaluated by University of East Anglia. 650 staff from 24 trusts received Bridges training and 80 project champions attended six masterclasses and were supported to expand the reach of self-management support within their services.

The key findings included:

- Tangible changes in the way that service users with stroke and neurological conditions were supported to manage their conditions.

- Practitioners gained confidence in supported self-management and expressed satisfaction in working more collaboratively with service users, feeling that they were providing a more effective and efficient service.

- Supported self-management was hardwired into paperwork, processes and systems which helped to reinforce learning and consistency, promote sharing sustainability and evaluation.

- There was strong support and interest from leadership which enabled staff to prioritise attendance at training and in trialling and adapting aspects of supported self-management in practice. Early-stage project ‘pre-Champions’ proved instrumental in supporting training delivery and engaging attendees.

Service pressures and staff shortages impacted engagement and implementation, particularly impacting attendance at training by nursing staff and health care assistants.

More about the project and executive summaries from each ICS region can be found here

To find out more about our published research