“Research is for smart people.” “We don’t do research.” “Research is all about numbers and statistics.” These are just a few of the misconceptions people often have about research.
When people hear the word ‘research’, they often picture academics, complex reports filled with technical language, or being a subject in a clinical trial. But research is much broader and much more accessible than that.
At Healthwatch Essex, research underpins everything that we do. Every conversation we have, every story we listen to, every survey we design and every project we conduct helps us to better understand people’s experiences of health and care. Research allows us to turn these experiences into evidence, identify themes and make recommendations that can improve local services.
Research is all about curiosity! Asking questions, listening carefully, exploring different ideas and using all that we have learned to instigate change.
As we mark this year’s #Red4Research Day, we’re celebrating the many ways that research shapes our work. We asked our team to share what research means to them and how it shapes their work here at Healthwatch Essex.
Reflections from our team:
We had many great insights from our team on the value of research. We heard from our CEO Sam Glover:
‘To me research means being heard. Not only as a researcher but also as a person who has participated in various research projects.
Research is integral to all we do, and I mean this in the broadest sense of what research means, from light touch engagement through to longitudinal, ethically approved, multi-methods research. Each of those interactions are an opportunity for us to not only learn to but share what we learn in ways that add to the education or academic forum and influence real life decision making’.
Our Project Officer Lily Boag:
‘Research is about listening with purpose and creating opportunities for people to share their experiences. It helps us understand what matters most to communities and ensures those voices help shape decisions, services, and support. By turning lived experience into meaningful evidence, research helps ensure services are shaped by the people who use them.
Listening to people’s experiences through research and engagement is a key part of my work, helping to ensure that local voices are at the heart of service improvement. Whether gathering feedback from residents about their experiences of health and care services or engaging with communities to better understand their needs and improve access to support, research helps us identify what matters most to people, highlight areas for improvement, and ensure services are informed by the needs and priorities of the communities they serve. By gathering the voices of those with lived experience, we can provide evidence-based insights that support better decision-making and service development’.
Our Information and Guidance Team shared some reflections on how they use research in their day-to-day roles:
‘For us, research is about active listening and understanding people’s lived experiences, passing on this knowledge to the health and care services.
As a Healthwatch Information and Guidance Officer, research helps us understand the challenges people face when accessing health and social care services. It provides valuable insight into what is working well and where improvements are needed. Every day, we speak to people about their experiences, concerns, and questions, and research helps put those experiences into a wider context.
Research supports our work by being aware of people’s struggles, highlighting emerging issues, and helping ensure that people’s voices are heard. It enables us to identify patterns, influence positive change, and contribute in the long term to better communication so the services meet the needs of local communities’.
We also heard from our Communications and Marketing Team who have been engaging with market research in the past few months:
‘In the Communications team, we typically do less hands-on research than the rest of the team. Most of the time we’re thinking about how to best share and amplify their research instead. However, recently we’ve done a lot of market research for our upcoming rebrand. The feedback we’ve received has influenced the decisions we’ve made, and it has highlighted what people need and want from us.
As we’re communicating with diverse audiences in different communities, it’s important for us to get the messages across sensitively and appropriately. We’re always looking at new ways of communicating, being more creative and thinking differently – using research to back up our decisions’.
We also received reflections from the Research Team:
‘Research is key to what we do in the Research Team! It helps us answer questions that we have about the world, figure out solutions to problems, and learn about people’s views and experiences. Research matters because it helps us identify what’s working and what isn’t in health and social care locally, and push for changes and improvements that are backed by evidence’ – Dr Joe Pearce
‘Research is about being curious and asking a question. A treatment, programme or pathway may be great on paper but fall short once implemented in the real world. The type of research we undertake at Healthwatch Essex explores those real-world, lived experience accounts’ – Lorna Orriss-Dib
‘For me, research is all about learning. Whether that is attending a workshop on an interesting topic, conducting a literature review, or listening to someone’s story, we are constantly learning something new.
Research is often perceived as collecting data, analysing results and producing reports. While these are important parts of the process (and things that I enjoy very much!), for me, research is also much more than this. It’s about immersing yourself in a topic, asking meaningful questions, building relationships with individuals and communities, and creating spaces for individuals to feel heard.
As a Research Officer I have had the privilege of listening to people’s experiences and creating opportunities for individuals to share their views on the changes they would like to see. These conversations have been some of the most rewarding aspects of my role. Moreover, ensuring that the insights people share do not simply remain within a report, but are communicated in ways that can influence practice and inform decision-making is what drives my passion for the research we do – Beth Pittuck
As our health and care systems continue to advance, research will remain a central part of understanding our communities needs and creating meaningful change. This #Red4Research day, we celebrate not only the projects we deliver but also the people who are at the heart of our research.