EXPLORING CARE NAVIGATORS EXPERIENCE OF ROLE

Background The Care Act 2014 necessitated an integrated approach with planning of care across a person’s whole care needs, not separate ones for health and social care as the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) perceive health and social care as one system. From September 2014 people with the most complex health and social care needs were placed on the Proactive Care Programme in order to receive personalised, joined up care and support. People on the programme have a personalised proactive care and support plan developed and supported by a care navigator who identifies available local services, signposts the individual to the services and supports access. The aim of the study was to explore how care navigators make sense of their experience of role and to examine the extent to which these experiences influence individual perceptions as the role was new to the health and social care workforce. Method This was achieved by exploring dominant discourse surrounding care navigators and reported experiences associated with care navigators to provide robust and credible empirical evidence of the key themes of care navigator role and identity. Through the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis to address the study aims and objectives, five interviews were conducted with five care navigators working across two sectors of an Inner London Borough. Results Three superordinate themes emerged from the interview transcripts, compassionate carer, holistic assessor and engagement enabler. These themes were interrelated across all five participants’ lifeworld experiences. Nine subordinate themes emerged from the superordinate themes. Person centred, active listener, and explorer emerging from compassionate carer, active observer, home visit, and prevention and isolation from holistic assessor, with direct to groups, attend groups and local community from engagement enabler. Conclusion The study provides new empirical evidence regarding care navigator role and identity within the health and social care workforce. This unique identity is formed through the participants’ lifeworld experience and was understood through interpretation of participants’ interview transcripts. This provides care navigators with a defined role, distinct from others within the multidisciplinary health and social care workforce.