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CLIC Sargent

Situation

CLIC Sargent is the UK's leading children's cancer charity and is the only organisation in the UK to offer all round care and support to children and young people with cancer, as well as to their families. The charity provides support to over 2,500 families with varying levels of need, for as long as a few weeks to several years.

CLIC Sargent is passionate about delivering services focused on 'answering the real needs' of children and young people with cancer, and those of their families and carers. The charity's services are tailored to meet families' needs, based on their direct feedback.

The charity was formed in 2005 after a successful merger between CLIC (Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood) and Sargent Cancer Care for Children. With resources combined to form one larger charity, the opportunity arose to create a dedicated Research and Development department. As the department started to take shape, it became clear that sourcing the right tools would be an important step in helping to build CLIC Sargen's research capabilities.

Challenge

CLIC Sargent began to look for the right software tools to enable improvements in data collection and analysis of service user feedback. The charity wanted to be in a better position to measure the impact of its services and make evidence-based decisions for new service development in the future.

Dr. Pilar Gonzalez-Doupe, Head of Research and Development at CLIC Sargent, commented: “We rely on voluntary donations as a charity, and we want to be sure that we are using our resources wisely, meeting families' real needs at the crucial time.”

CLIC Sargent had been using word processing and spreadsheet tools, but found that turning service user feedback from raw data into reports was taking too long. The charity also wanted to be able to analyse patterns in the data for ad-hoc reports and broader analysis, but with the tools and the resources then available, it was difficult to do more than produce very simple monthly reports.

It was also important that any new software would be compatible with CLIC Sargent's existing database, which it would continue to use for many functions.

Solution

CLIC Sargent decided to evaluate software from SPSS. Both Gonzalez-Doupe and the new senior researcher in post were already aware of SPSS, having previously used its statistical packages for academic research.

A word-of-mouth recommendation from another charity, commenting that SPSS had 'really helped them to manage sensitive information sensitively,' also made SPSS stand out as a key contender.

The Research & Development team then worked with the IT department to make sure any investment in new software was considered from all angles.

At the end of its evaluation process, CLIC Sargent purchased SPSS. The solutions from SPSS included assisting CLIC Sargent's Research and Development team with several key targets:

Within two months of purchasing SPSS, various CLIC Sargent employees had taken part in training for the different software packages, including customised on-site training.

The SPSS solution has enabled CLIC Sargent to deliver surveys online, saving the Research and Development team a huge amount of time on data entry. The online surveys are also more convenient for staff and families to complete because SPSS provides secure log-in facilities and the option to stop and start surveys when it suits. CLIC Sargent has found this flexibility is encouraging greater participation because individuals can complete a survey over several days, not losing any information already entered even when interrupted during a busy work day.

In addition, because it is now possible to analyse and report on the results of the feedback more quickly, CLIC Sargent can publish the results on its website, or distribute reports to staff in a timely fashion. This also helps build support for the surveys because participants can see their feedback has been helpful.

On the decision to purchase SPSS, Gonzalez-Doupe added, "It's a long-term investment for us, but the organisation wants to develop and this means it is important to be able to evidence our work, to be sure we are providing the right support at the right time. SPSS has the right tools to help us do that."

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Results

As a result of deploying SPSS, CLIC Sargent's Research and Development team has been able to commit to producing four-to-five research reports per year compared to a previous rate of one per year.

This faster turnaround from survey to reporting has improved the awareness and capacity of research and development within the organisation and has improved collaboration with other departments. The Research and Development team now receives questionnaire requests on a regular basis and is involved from the beginning with the design and formatting of questionnaires for other departments, rather than simply receiving data to analyse. This has had the welcome effect of improving the quality of quantitative and qualitative research being carried out.

"Using SPSS has already vastly improved how the analysis is done and we are now looking into how to expand the breadth of research we can undertake and how to include a wider range of people in our feedback loop," commented Gonzalez-Doupe.

CLIC Sargent's next challenge is evaluating how to use SPSS to collect feedback from the children and young people who use its services, as currently it is only the parents/carers and frontline staff who are surveyed. This will be a considerable undertaking and will require much thought and planning in order to ensure the feedback is collected in a sensitive manner at an appropriate time. However, feedback directly from children and young people - the patients themselves - will vastly improve the depth of feedback and the possibility of age-appropriate service development.

In addition, calculating the return-on-investment from a software purchase is important for any organisation, but perhaps doubly so for a charity. The decision to purchase SPSS has already started to reap rewards for CLIC Sargent, according to Gonzalez-Doupe:
"Because of the time we have saved on data-entry, the SPSS tools have allowed CLIC Sargent to save the equivalent of funding a part-time research assistant within six months."

CLIC Sargent has also identified a positive knock-on effect of the improved visibility of reporting, noting that the surveys are not just about identifying gaps in services, but also about providing positive feedback to frontline staff working directly with families. This is highly motivating, both for frontline staff and for office-based staff, to hear families' direct feedback. - "It helps all of us know that we are supporting families in a meaningful way," added Gonzalez-Doupe.

CLIC Sargent already has plans for optimising its investment in SPSS and has a number of projects planned, all of which will help improve the charity's understanding of the best directions for service development.

Gonzalez-Doupe concluded, "We would like to see how the research and analysis we are now able to do, using SPSS, can help CLIC Sargent optimise the timing of our service delivery; so that we are offering the right services, at the right time, when they will be of most use or benefit to the children and young people, as well as to their families and carers."