ESSENCE: Economic Evidence for Adult Social Care Decision-Making

The EconomicS-of-Social-carE-CompEndium (ESSENCE) project has been funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research in two previous phases of the School. Its aim is to improve access to and the use of economic evidence within England’s social care system. 

One important goal of ESSENCE has beenwas to simplify complex economic data and collaborate closely with people who work and commission social care services to help them make more informed decisions. As part of this, we found relevant evidence from previous research and turned it into clear, accessible information for commissioners, social care workers, and other key stakeholders. The result was the ESSENCE ‘Toolkit’, an online resource that offers summarised economic evidence on social care services, mainly for adults, and some children’s services. The Toolkit features an easily searchable database and case studies developed with input from our collaborators and advisory group. 

A new study – ESSENCE-3 – started in January 2025 and aims to build on this earlier work to continue to update the collation and summarising of evidence.
 

• ESSENCE-3 (01/01/2025 - 31/12/2028)

  We will undertake the following activities:

  First, we will update the database by looking for relevant evidence from previous social care studies. We may add to this evidence by conducting some new quantitative analysis – for example, to supplement existing evidence on ‘what works’ with new estimates of the cost implications. We will summarise all of this evidence in non-technical language and make the summaries freely accessible online. We will expand our coverage of children’s social care.

  Second, we will strengthen collaborations by expanding our partnerships with people who work in local, national, and international social care organisations. This will allow us, for example, to integrate more economic evidence on children’s social care into the ESSENCE Toolkit and ensure it meets the needs of a broader audience.

  Third, we will explore what new research areas should be included to ensure that ESSENCE remains relevant and responsive to current developments in social care. By identifying new research needs, we aim to keep our work at the cutting edge of social care economics.

  Finally, we will offer training and communication in economic evaluation in social care. We will work closely with the NIHR Social Care Economics Network (which we ourselves helped establish in 2023). This Network includes more than 60 health and care economists from across the UK. This will help us to encourage the production and use of economic evidence in social care decision making.

  We will share our findings in different ways, including events, webinars, reports and articles. The case summaries in the ESSENCE Toolkit are written in an accessible, non-technical style. We shall also co-produce lay-friendly online blogs and ‘conversations’ with our public advisors.
   

• ESSENCE-2 (01/06/2020 to 30/04/2024)

  The aims of this second study, completed during the third phase of the School for Social Care Research, were:

  • To keep the ESSENCE project up-to-date, learn from past experience and add in new evidence and new case summaries where relevant; and update existing case summaries;
  • To contribute to a better understanding of economic evidence and its application in the social care field by providing training and learning materials relevant to a range of decision-makers and stakeholders;
  • To identify social care interventions for which there is currently no economic evidence, but which could be examined in future research.

  The research team consulted with potential users of the material to help improve the layout and contents of the Toolkit.
   

• ESSENCE-1 (01/06/2017 to 30/04/2019)

  The ESSENCE project aimed to:

  • make economic evidence available to decision-makers in England’s adult social care system to inform their decisions;
  • improve understanding of economic evidence and its application by providing training and learning materials relevant to decision-makers and analysts; and
  • identify adult social care interventions where it is currently not possible to examine the economic case but which could be taken up in future research.

  We examined whether there is an economic case for each of a range of adult social care interventions.

  We have aimed to communicate the evidence in accessible form and discuss it with as many stakeholders as possible. These stakeholders have included local commissioners, providers, central government officials, individual service users and carers, and researchers: evidence of different kinds will be relevant to different stakeholders.

  Our compendium

  We have produced a comprehensive collection of everything that can be found (previous research that is relevant) and new analyses (new evidence that we assemble, mainly through modelling), and ‘tools’ that would enable localisation of evidence by illustrating its implications for local levels of needs, service configurations, unit costs and so on.
   

• Resources

  • Project findings – ESSENCE-1
  • Project findings – ESSENCE-2
  • The ESSENCE online compendium
  • ESSENCE toolkit

  Findings are also available via:

  • The International Long Term Care Policy Network (ILPN) Journal of Long Term Care