Missing people with dementia research study

Descriptions

Alzheimer Scotland is working in partnership with Police Scotland to roll out a pilot service called ‘Return Discussions’, which aims to reduce the number of missing persons with dementia . A Return Discussion (RD) is an open conversation with the affected family, of the circumstances surrounding a reported missing incident. We are looking for an academic partner to carry out a social impact evaluation on: -the Return Discussion pilot service in the Edinburgh, Fife and Lanarkshire Police division areas, and -to quantify the costs to Police and Emergency Services when a person with dementia goes missing in Scotland. RDs have been routinely embedded into Police Scotland practice for some time. However, following some pioneering work by Missing People and Barnardo’s, a referral system for RD’s has been introduced by Police Scotland for missing children. Following on the success of this practice, in 2022 we piloted a RD referral system for people living with dementia, where the local Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Advisor would: comfort and reassure the carer, debrief the missing occurrence, advise on how to mitigate other missing occurrences from happening and provide information and access to resources and support. All of this is underpinned by the principles contained within the National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland; Prevent, Respond, Support and Protect. We piloted the RD service in Edinburgh, where we had a substantial positive impact on both our professional practice and the lives of the families affected by the missing incidents. The first 6 months of our pilot were evaluated by the University of Edinburgh, while the overall 12 months of the pilot were evaluated internally. The evidence suggests that RDs allowed Alzheimer Scotland to connect families to local and national services which wouldn’t have otherwise been accessed. The data demonstrates how this approach in Edinburgh helped reduce repeat missing incidents, with a decrease of 37.5% for the top 5 repeat missing people from the same time period the previous year. A major grant has now been secured from the RS Macdonald Charitable Trust to help expand this important work into new locality areas of Fife and Lanarkshire during 2024/25. Alongside the pilot expansion, funding will also enable commissioning of an independent evaluation study, to capture the cost of a missing person with dementia to the Emergency Services. We're looking for an academic partner to scope and carry out this research alongside Alzheimer Scotland and Police Scotland teams. The award of this notice will be granted to one academic organisation, based on their previous (and verifiable) track record of work in a similar project or on a similar subject. We will be looking to the appointed evaluators to: -Demonstrate their experience in undertaking quantitative and qualitative data analysis methodology in the field of dementia -Set out how they may approach capturing the cost to emergency services, of someone who goes missing with dementia -Highlight any considerations of particular importance in undertaking the evaluation -Set out a clear consent and data sharing pathway that shows experience of working with cross sector stakeholders -Present quarterly updates on data analysis to the project team and attend project meetings where required. -Provide examples of professional impact reports produced as a result of evaluation studies -Provide a final evaluation report that documents the complete evaluation throughout the pilot alongside overall evidence, learning and conclusions. Scoring criteria will take account of the following: -value for money -a basic knowledge and understanding of the Return Discussions work to date -knowledge and understanding of the dementia policy context in Scotland -extensive experience of working on projects similar to that being proposed, demonstrating actual and transferable skills and knowledge -clarity of the proposal -ability to deliver to the proposed timeframe and budget.