Regional Integration Fund: Individual Case Studies FAQ

The Cardiff and Vale Regional Partnership Board (RPB) is a formal partnership involving various organisations designed to improve the health and social care outcomes and people in the region. Cardiff and Vale RPB receive RIF monies from Welsh Government (WG) to trial new ways of working under its Starting Well, Living Well and Ageing Well programmes to help achieve the above aim.

A case study is an in-depth exploration of a specific subject to understand its real-world context and underlying factors.

RIF case studies are designed to complement the RIF quantitative and financial reporting by providing an opportunity to delve into a subject matter to understand why something has happened, to whom and when. One example is to understand reasons for the low wellbeing scores collected and reported as part of the quantitative performance reporting. 

They are not designed to only capture ‘good’ examples of practice or positive outcomes, although these may appear naturally in the data collected. An individual’s experience is to be accurately captured and reflected upon to identity any good practice or opportunities for learning and service improvement.

Equally, they are one of the key reporting conditions of the RIF set out by Welsh Government. 

Welsh Government requires five different but complementary perspectives to be explored and captured:

1. Users of your RIF funded project, i.e. citizens/patients
2. Family members or unpaid carers of the person accessing your RIF funded project
3. Frontline staff member of your RIF funded project
4. Middle or senior manager of your RIF funded project
5. Frontline staff member or middle or senior manager from a non-RIF funded service/team impacted by your RIF funded project 

Welsh Government require five individual case studies, one from each perspective, for each RIF funded project each financial year.

We will try, where possible, to ensure that the case study data collection doesn’t coincide with the quantitative performance reporting. Because a key aspect of collecting these case studies is to complement the understanding gained from the quantitative data, ideally, they will be undertaken the quarter following the most recent performance report, i.e. Q1 and Q3. Liaise with your CAVRPB Programme Lead to agree a rolling schedule.

From a citizen/patient and family member or unpaid carer perspective (perspectives 1 and 2), the ideal situation would be to choose people at random. This prevents bias or ‘cherry picking’. This could be done in practice by proactively setting a date and time in which to identify potential individuals and asking the first citizen/patient and family member/unpaid carer completing their involvement with RIF funded the project to participate in the case study. 

From a staff perspective (perspectives 3, 4 and 5), you will need to purposively select individuals on the basis of their involvement with your RIF funded project. Yet similar to above, the ideal situation would be to randomly select an individual, which could be done using a similar approach to that outlined above, i.e. proactively setting a date and time and asking the first person who meets the case study selection criteria to participate. 

The requirement is to hold and capture an actual conversation with people representing the individual perspectives outlined above. 

The ideal approach would be to pre-arrange a time to collect the required information. If doing so on the telephone or in-person, take as detailed notes as possible. If meeting virtually, try to do so via MS Teams as it has a free transcription function that will automatically type/write up the conversation.

Regardless of the approach, allocate time directly after the conversation to review and finalise their responses whilst the conversation is fresh in your mind. 

Good practice dictates sharing the final written notes with the individual to ensure they are content with their response. Offer a window of opportunity such as three working days to respond and provide any revisions. A lack of response will be considered as acceptance. 

Yes. You must ask if they are happy to provide their views, and for their views to be captured in a written case study and included in an anonymised report to CAVRPB and Welsh Government. 

Please use the ‘Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form’ to collect the participant’s consent and return to the RPB via email to hsc.integration@wales.nhs.uk

Click to download:

Participant Info Sheet and Consent Form

Participant Info Sheet and Consent Form - Easy Read

Please use one of the following templates, depending on who you are interviewing. The purpose of this template is to serve as a guide to help facilitate a discussion. It is not necessary to receive detailed responses to every question. Rather, concentrate on summarising the main conclusions and insights from the conversation.  

1. Service User

2. Family Member or Unpaid Carer

3. Frontline Staff Member

4. Middle or Senior Manager

5. Staff or Manager Impacted by Project

A suggested maximum 30 minutes should be allotted to capturing the individual’s views against the relevant case study questions. A further 30 minutes should be set aside to finalise the typed/written notes and case study submission. 

Yes, as long as each individual perspective is clearly labelled in any final submitted case studies, e.g. one user of our RIF funded service reported…or, a staff member from a non-RIF funded service impacted by our RIF project said…

Liaise with your RPB Programme Lead to consider possible ways forward.

Liaise with your RPB Programme Lead and the RPB Information Manager for any support and guidance.