SDO Carers Research
Working in partnership with the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, Acton Shapiro has carried out three national studies on carers, all commissioned by the NHS Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO) programme:
  1. Services to Support Carers of People with Mental Health Problems (2002)
  2. Access to Health Care for Carers: Barriers and Interventions (2003)
  3. Review of Respite Services for Carers of People with Dementia (2004)

The first was a scoping study of services for carers of people with mental health problems, which involved both a literature review and interviews and discussions with ‘key informant’ carers, policy makers and practitioners.  The second focused on barriers to access to healthcare for carers and the final study looked at respite services for carers of people with dementia and again combined a literature review with fieldwork with carers and professionals, in a number of case study sites.

The full reports from all three studies and summaries of findings are available on the SDO website www.sdo.nihr.ac.uk.