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Biography
Professor Gordon trained in Edinburgh, Dundee and Sydney before settling in Nottingham. He has, since 2008, been a clinical academic with interests in the implementation of evidence-based models of care to deliver improved health outcomes for older people with frailty. He is particularly interested in how the care needs of the care home population can be met and has played a leading role in studies looking at models of healthcare to the care home sector and also in randomized controlled trials evaluating interventions, proven to be of benefit in other healthcare sectors, for the care home population.
His other area of interest is developing curricula and teaching interventions to improve learning about care of older people across the healthcare professions.
Prof Gordon leads the Nottingham arm of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration for East Midlands (ARC-EM) and also leads the Building Community Resilience and Enabling Independence (BCREI) theme within the ARC.
He is currently President of the British Geriatrics Society
Research Summary
DACHA is working to develop a minimum dataset for UK care homes. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how little data were available around UK care homes, and this meant that health and social care… read more
Selected Publications
USMAN A, LEWIS S, HINSLIFF-SMITH K, LONG A, HOUSLEY G, JORDAN J, GAGE H, DENING T, GLADMAN JRF and GORDON AL, 2019. Measuring health related quality of life of care home residents: comparison of self-report with staff proxy responses. Age and Ageing. 48(3), 407-413 CHADBORN, NEIL H, GOODMAN, CLAIRE, ZUBAIR, MARIA, SOUSA, LÍDIA, GLADMAN, JOHN R F, DENING, TOM and GORDON, ADAM, L, 2019. Role of comprehensive geriatric assessment in healthcare of older people in UK care homes: realist review BMJ Open. 9, WYLIE G, TORRENS C, CAMPBELL P, FROST H, GORDON AL, MENZ HB, SKELTON DA, SULLIVAN F, WITHAM MD and MORRIS J, 2019. Podiatry interventions to prevent falls in older people: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing.
Current Research
DACHA is working to develop a minimum dataset for UK care homes. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how little data were available around UK care homes, and this meant that health and social care commissioners and providers were unable to commission or plan for care delivery in the sector. Prof Gordon will co-lead workstream 5 which will implement a prototype dataset across 24 care homes in two English Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) starting in October 2021.
Past Research
The Care Home Outcome Study and Staff Interviews in Care Homes Study described the cohort of older people living in care homes, their healthcare needs and how health and social care professionals responded to these in a crisis as part of the NIHR-PGfAR funded Medical Crises in Older People Programme.
The Optimal Study used a realist approach to describe models of healthcare provided by the National Health Service (NHS) for Older People living in care homes and developed a programme theory explaining what the "active ingredients" were which enabled effective and cost-effective care for older people living in these settings.
The Proactive Healthcare for Older People Living in Care Homes (PEACH) Study used Quality Improvement Collaboratives as a way of helping Clinical Commissioning Groups in South Nottinghamshire to align their care more closely with evidence based principles of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment. The PEACH team used realist methodology to understand how the collaboratives operated across the interface of health and social care and the interventions used by the collaboratives as part of Quality Improvement Cycles. In addition, the team developed an algorithm to better interrogate acute hospital databases for care home admissions and to compile these data as a dashboard for care providers.
Future Research
Future research interests include:
- Further developing the PROTECT-CH platform to develop a sustainable approach to Randomised Controlled Trials of Novel Interventions in Care Homes.
- Further understanding the utility of minimum datasets and their roles in driving clinical care planning and quality improvement in the care home setting.
- Sarcopenia, protein supplementation and exercise in cohorts of frail older adults, including those living in long-term care.
- Developing more coherent approaches to prescribing and deprescribing in long-term care.
- Developing aggregable indices of person- and relationship-centred care that can be used in the long-term care sector.
- Further understanding the role of point-of-care testing in care homes.