'Let me take care of you': how dining and surgery can improve care and illuminate each other's practices

This proposal explores 'care' as a central yet under-articulated aspect of human experience. It builds on previous work (led by Kneebone and Cotterrell) that generated a fruitful collaboration between academics, clinicians and the Fat Duck Team (a three Michelin starred restaurant). Through the medium of surgical simulation and observations of this high-end restaurant, similarities and differences around how patients and diners are cared for were revealed.

This follow-on proposal explores these findings further, by focusing on innovative ways on care and its centrality within human experience. The project widens the focus from providers of care to recipients of care by examining two key sites - hospitals and restaurants. It broadens the focus from the technical (and largely hidden) expertise of the operating theatre and the kitchen to sites where care is experienced directly - the clinic, the hospital ward and the restaurant table. The proposal uses simulation to explore how care in different settings is expressed through embodied interaction between professionals and publics, engaging with new audiences to explore fundamental principles of care across two different but strikingly similar sectors.

Six full-day public engagement events in selected UK venues (London (x2), Liverpool, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow) will each engage between 50 and 250 people during an 8-hour day, reaching a total number of at least 300-1500 public participants (not including restaurant and clinical staff).

The use of simulation in this context is highly innovative and creative. Traditionally used as a means of training insiders (especially in the medical and surgical context), simulation is seldom used as a means of crossing disciplinary boundaries and establishing creative partnerships (between restaurant and hospital, as in this proposal) around an area of 'correspondence' (i.e. the overarching concept of care rather than the site or manner of its delivery). The primary focus of this proposal is to develop new and anticipated pathways to impact, bringing value to professionals in medicine and restaurants through immersive engagement with diverse publics to generate further insights and discussions and to extend the impact of the initial Research Networking Award

This project will create innovative pathways to impact that follow from Kneebone & Cotterrell's existing AHRC-funded Research Networking Award. The original award provided an opportunity to explore novel and imaginative approaches to the world of healthcare, using innovative simulation to enable collaboration between clinicians and those in the creative and performing arts and the hospitality industry. This Follow on Funding award will develop unorthodox collaboration with non-academic communities (restaurants and healthcare), creating insights into the experience of care that we believe will be of societal value and use. The proposal is inherently cross-disciplinary and its novel collaboration will provide an exemplar of academic and non-academic communities (restaurant and clinicians) coming together around apparently disparate lines of enquiry to improve care. The Principal Investigator and Co-investigator are active researchers with extensive experience in cross-disciplinary collaboration and simulation techniques.

This project builds on an extensive body of work led by Kneebone, developing innovative applications of simulation. The Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS, led by Kneebone), uses simulation to engage with patients, publics and professionals within healthcare, while the St Mary's Hospital Patient Experience Hub (also led by Kneebone) explores how patients across a wide range of ages and clinical conditions (from children and adolescents with asthma to frail and elderly people with cancer and heart disease) perceive and respond to the care they receive. Collaborators have included the Royal College of Music, Art Workers Guild, V&A Research Institute, University of the Arts London and the City & Guilds Art School). The work of Kneebone and his colleagues is widely recognised within the UK and internationally, and in 2016 ICCESS was awarded the Imperial College President's Medal for Excellence in Societal Engagement. This profile will provide a springboard for maximsing the impact of the current proposal. Existing networks and activities (including science and arts festivals, social media activity and extensive collaborations with academic and non-academic partners) provide rich opportunities to extend the impact of this proposal in the future.

The proposal will support the professional development of the Co-Investigator (a high-performing Early Career Researcher whose trajectory is already showing exceptional promise), maximising the impact of her work to date and allowing her to increase its traction within another academic institution.

By bringing together professionals (restaurant and clinical staff) and publics (patients and diners) in a spirit of open-minded and respectful dialogue, the proposal will create a blueprint for immersive simulation-based engagement which has the potential for wider applicability. Beneficiaries include the professionals and publics involved in the project's programme of engagement events and wider publics and audiences who observe and participate. On a wider horizon, the engagement principles developed in this project are widely applicable and could be used to compare and contrast a variety of sectors beyond the initial participants. We anticipate that the proposal will influence healthcare policy and restaurant practice at local and national levels.