RICH Voices is led by Rosie Ashworth and Anna Crawford.

Rosie’s background is in co-production and dementia research. Alongside her role in ENRICH Scotland, Rosie is the ‘patient and public involvement’ lead for the NRS Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network.  As well as her role within ENRICH Scotland, Anna Crawford is the ‘patient and public involvement and engagement’ officer at the Advanced Care Research Centre, based at the University of Edinburgh.

RICH Voices are also supported the ENRICH Scotland Clinical Studies Officers, who work directly with ‘research ready care homes’ in their local area.

As part of our first year working together, our focus has been on challenging misconceptions about care homes and research. By looking at both of these areas we hope to improve people’s understanding of what it is like to live and work in care homes, or support someone who does, as well as make research more accessible and therefore improve participation opportunities. 

We are in the process of creating a RICH Voices podcast, an idea generated by RICH Voices for provided accessible and accurate information about care home research. Our four-part podcast series that sets the scene of care home research, looks at the benefits of research involvement, explores the challenges for research in care homes, and look at the future for research in care homes. Podcasts are being recorded online as well as within care homes to capture a wide range of voices.

The four podcast episodes will focus on:

• Setting the scene - care home research
• Benefits and impact of research
• Challenges and how to overcome them
• Future directions for care home research

People can get involved with this series by asking and/or answering questions on the podcast; desiging a logo/branding for the series; and developing the content of episodes and questions to be asked.

Alongside the podcast, we have received some funding to co-create a film about what research participation in care homes can look like. We are hoping that be showcasing the range of research types and how they look in practice will help demystify research and increase people’s confidence in taking part.

We hold regular meetings with our RICH Voices team to make sure the activities that we offer are of relevance and importance to the group. We are also working alongside academics and/or researchers to help them to incorporate ‘patient and public involvement’ into their research design and development. In doing so we hope to see more research that is accessible and applicable to the care home environment