Current Work – the IMPROVE intervention
UCL is hosting a 3 year NIHR grant for a group of partners to undertake a realist evaluation of the IMPROVE intervention (and make recommended changes to the resources based on feedback so far). Work commenced in November 2024.
The IMPROVE Community of Practice programme brings professionals together online or face to face for 8 meetings of 1.5-2 hours over about 8 months. IMPROVE has been designed to be used by groups of professionals from mixed backgrounds, who all work in the same town, city or location.
Over the course of the intervention, staff will learn about each others roles and about homelessness and palliative care. Through the sessions, they will share what they already know, and talk about how they can work better together. The intervention includes training for a lead person (called a facilitator) to run the sessions, and a website with videos / other training resources to help them host online meetings.
In Phase 1 of the programme (November 2024 – July 2025), past users of the Community of Practice resources and people with a lived experience of homelessness were asked what they thought should be in a programme like this.
In Phase 2 of the programme new films and resources were created on the basis of this feedback (Aug 2025 – Dec 2025). The filming was supported by therapeutic filming specilialists Flexible Films.
Phase 3 commenced in Jan 2026, with the 8 sessions due to be run at 10 sites consecutively from March 2026.
The 10 sites are:
Camden and Islington; Hereford; Kingston and Richmond; Leeds; Northeast London ICB area; Nottingham, Mansfield and Nottinghamshire; Oxford; Sheffield; Watford; Wolverhampton, Wallsall, Dudley, Sandwell.
Please get in touch for more info: samantha.dorney-smith@ucl.ac.uk
The research team for the current NIHR programme includes:
| Dr Briony Hudson | Principal Investigator, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, Division of Psychiatry UCL, Pathway Fellow |
| Sam Dorney-Smith | Clinical Research Associate, Pathway and Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, Division of Psychiatry UCL; Pathway Fellow; Queen’s Nurse |
| Jodie Crooks | Qualitative Research Manager, Marie Curie |
| Dr Caroline Shulman | Dr Caroline Shulman, Clinician and researcher in homeless and inclusion health, Honorary senior lecturer, Marie Curie palliative care research department, division of Psychiatry, UCL and Pathway senior research fellow |
| Dr Nuriye Kupeli | Principal Research Fellow, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, Division of Psychiatry UCL |
| Professor Kate Flemming | Senior Lecturer, Department of Health Sciences, The University of York |
| Professor Lucy Zeigler | Professor of Palliative, St Gemma’s Academic Unit of Palliative Care, University of Leeds |
| Dr Sarah Mitchell | Clinical Associate Professor of Palliative Care, St Gemma’s Academic Unit of Palliative Care, University of Leeds |
| Mandy Pattinson | Lived Experience Programme Manager, Pathway |
| Rachel Brennan | Head of Research, Groundswell |
| Stephan Morrison | Research Project Officer, Groundswell |