The number of older people funding their care has increased dramatically because of changes in the way statutory social care is organised and the impacts of austerity measures including successive cuts in social care funding and tightening of eligibility criteria.

There is little research on self-funded care, despite its growing significance to policy and practice.  Older people’s perspectives on self-funding are largely absent in policy and practice debates and within research. 

We aim to address this gap in knowledge by engaging with the lived experiences of older people who are self-funders and capturing their care trajectories in ‘real time’.

Our approach to collaboration is based on the principles of co-production.

By co-production we mean: knowledge rooted in older people’s experiences; that is generated through a research process involving older co-researchers at all stages; and which is then brought into dialogue with commissioners, service providers and practitioners in knowledge exchange groups.