During the Covid-19 pandemic, it became clear that we didn’t know what was happening inside care homes.

“There is a complete lack of data on people in care homes, both residents and staff. If you can't measure things, you don't know where problems lie, and that makes it really hard to know how to intervene to make improvements.”

Professor Laura Shallcross
UCL Institute of Health Informatics

The challenge

We routinely collect information about hospitals, including who is admitted, which treatments they receive, and their health outcomes.

Equivalent information about care home residents has historically been much harder to access. This is why the original Vivaldi study was established, which later evolved into Vivaldi Social Care.

Why data matters

For years, there was limited information about infections in care homes for older people.

Without good data:

• Outbreaks were harder to identify
• Good practice was harder to share
• Policymakers didn't know where support was needed most

If you can't see a problem, it's difficult to solve it.

From data to action

By securely linking information already being collected in care homes with NHS records, researchers were able to build a much clearer picture of what was happening across the sector.

Vivaldi helped inform:

• Booster vaccination recommendations
• Responses to emerging Covid variants
• An understanding of how staff movement between care homes influenced infection risk.

Researchers could begin to understand what was happening across large numbers of care homes in near real time, helping turn information into action.

Beyond the pandemic

Originally designed to understand how the virus was affecting care homes, the Vivaldi study brought together information on Covid-19 tests, vaccines, hospital admissions and mortality across hundreds of care homes.

Now evolved into Vivaldi Social Care, it is a platform for research, improvement and innovation across the adult social care sector.

Built in partnership

The development of Vivaldi Social Care has been shaped by close collaboration between researchers, care providers, residents, relatives and care home staff to ensure the research addresses the issues that matter most to the sector.

Led by UCL, the programme works in partnership with care-sector organisations including The Outstanding Society and Care England, alongside care providers, regulators and people with lived experience of care homes.

This approach ensures the research is both practical and relevant, making it easier for care homes to take part in research and use data to improve care.

What does a care home gain from being part of Vivaldi Social Care?

Care homes already collect large amounts of information. This programme helps them turn that information into insight.

Using dashboards, participating organisations can compare their own data with regional and national averages, helping them identify patterns and opportunities for improvement.

Building the future of care home research

Today, Vivaldi Social Care is expanding its focus to other infections that have a major impact on care home residents, including flu, norovirus and urinary tract infections.

These conditions can make residents really unwell, lead to hospital admissions, and affect quality of life.

By creating a national research infrastructure for care homes, the programme is helping to answer important questions:

• Why do some care homes achieve better outcomes than others?
• Which interventions are most effective?
• How can successful approaches be shared more widely?

The information collected through Vivaldi Social Care can support dashboards, research studies and clinical trials designed specifically for care home residents.