Outcomes and Impact
This domain helps you consider the outcomes and impact of your project output(s) for patients, service users, health and social care professionals, third sector organisation professionals and health and social care systems.
What should I consider for my project?
Consider what outcomes or results you wish to achieve as a result of implementation. Outcomes can be identified at the start of the project, but may also change over time, in response to wider changes in the health and social care systems. Stakeholders can be key to help defining the outcomes for the project as well as if they are achievable. They can also help guide whether outcomes may need to be adapted in light of wider health and social care changes.
- How will stakeholders be involved in defining outcomes for the project?
- What will be the benefits of these outcomes to stakeholders, and will these be identifiable for all stakeholders?
- How will engagement be maintained during implementation?
- Are these outcomes achievable?
- How may the outcomes change over time? (e.g., in relation to the wider health and social care system)
Think about the potential effects implementation will have for different stakeholders (e.g., patients, service users, public contributors, families, health and social care professionals, third sector organisation professionals) and the wider health and social care systems. These can be both positive and negative. Considering the potential impact early on and throughout your project can help you determine what change your project is going to bring about for health and social care systems.
- What is the potential impact likely to be? (e.g., improvements in effectiveness/efficiency of a service, access to care or reduction in inequalities)
- What measurable changes or results will this impact lead to?
- How are changes to be assessed or evaluated? (e.g., evaluation of a course or intervention)
- How are changes to be evaluated over time? (e.g., immediate, short/medium, longer-term)
- How will these changes impact stakeholders? (e.g., impact on health and social care experiences)
- How will these changes impact wider health and social care systems?
Case study
Stroke awareness Action Learning Sets for health and social care professionals Project (SALs) team
“Upon reflection, thinking about the potential benefit or outcomes of our project to different stakeholder groups has been essential to increasing the impact of our project. We thought about what we wanted to achieve during the lifetime of the project in terms of improving awareness of stroke in clinical and community settings, but also longer-term and how this may improve patient and service user experiences of accessing stroke care.
We knew that our stakeholder groups would be patients, social care users and health care professionals, social care professionals and third sector organisation professionals, as well as the wider health and social care system. At the beginning of the project, we considered how we would measure or evaluate the impact of the project outputs with these stakeholder groups. Closure of a local stroke awareness information support centre during the project, was devastating to the local community. It also meant that we wanted to adapt the aims of the project to accommodate the needs of those directly affected. Had we not been engaged with different stakeholder groups; this would not have happened. It made us realise the importance of engagement with stakeholders throughout to ensure that what we needed to measure or evaluate was closely aligned to their needs and priorities.”
Take away tips
- Potential outcomes and impact of implementation should be considered at the outset of a project
- Engagement with stakeholders is essential to determining outcomes and impact for individuals, organisations and the wider health and social care system