Springfield Research

What is NICHE-Leeds?

NICHE-Leeds is a partnership between Springfield Healthcare and University of Leeds. NICHE stands for Nurturing Innovation in Care Home Excellence in Leeds: NICHE-Leeds.

Who is involved?

Springfield staff, residents and families work with researchers at the University of Leeds to enhance life, care and work in care homes.

How does NICHE-Leeds work?

We find out the issues that matter to staff, residents and families, and work together to develop solutions and put these solutions into day-to-day practice.

Where do the solutions come from?

Research staff are part of NICHE-Leeds and they help find solutions that have been scientifically tested. The solutions are summarised, and researchers and care home staff work together on presenting solutions in a ‘NICHE Know How’ document.

Researchers and the care home work together to embed the scientifically tested solutions into care home practice.

Sometimes scientifically tested solutions are not available

and when this happens research projects are carried out which aim to find and test solutions.

What is research?

Research is work carried out to find answers to questions. This involves gathering information and then drawing conclusions which will help to understand a topic.

Does research make a difference?

Finding answers to questions asked by care home staff, residents and relatives can help to enhance care, life and work in care homes. Research projects take time to carry out but the work carried out helps develop new knowledge that can make a difference to peoples’ lives.

What sort of topics are being worked on at the moment?

We are working on a variety of topics:

1. Supporting residents who resist personal care
2. How best to keep residents’ mouths healthy
3. Understanding how to better attract, recruit and retain staff
4. Using technology for tracing contacts and COVID19

Find out more about our projects here.