OB3 is a member of a partnership led by the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care (WIHSC), based at University of South Wales (USW), that has been awarded a contract with a total value of more than £1m for the national evaluation of the Health and Social Care Regional Integration Fund (RIF).
The three-year programme of work is a collaboration between USW, OB3 Research, Swansea University, University of West of Scotland, and Bangor University.
Launched in early 2022, the RIF – worth around £150 million per year – has provided a renewed focus on community-based care, emotional health and well-being, supporting families to stay together safely, care experienced children, home from hospital services and accommodation-based solutions.
Professor Mark Llewelyn, Director of WIHSC said:
“Our partnership has been commissioned to understand the way in which the RIF is delivering on the transformative promise that it set out. The RIF evaluation aims to understand the impact of different models of care.
We will investigate the economic costs and benefits of those models and investigate how far they are delivering the right outcomes for people.
“We've been asked to explore whether those models of care have proved to be effective, and if so, how they can offer ‘templates’ for the wider system to learn from so that the whole of Wales benefits.”
