The James Lind Alliance (JLA) is a non-profit making initiative, set up in 2004. It brings service users, carers and professionals together in Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs). These partnerships identify and prioritise uncertainties, or ‘unanswered questions’, about the effects of interventions that they agree are the most important. The aim of this is to help make sure that people who fund health and care research are aware of what really matters to service users, carers and professionals. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR – www.nihr.ac.uk) funds the infrastructure of the JLA to manage the processes for priority setting partnerships, based at the NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre (NETSCC), University of Southampton.

The Adult Social Work PSP was started by the Chief Social Worker for Adults in the Department of Health, in response to the 2016 report: “Social Work: the state we’re in” by the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s College. The report recommended that research priorities for adult social work are identified in an inclusive and rigorous way and acknowledged the James Lind Alliance process for being able to find research priorities from groups of interested people; establish clarity in the areas about which little is known and build agreement about what the most important research questions are.

Social workers provide vital services to children, adults, families and communities. Social workers help people find solutions to social and practical problems, access care and support, be safe from harm or neglect, exercise their human rights and get on with the lives they want to lead as much as possible. For social workers working with adults, this involves working with people, families and communities across a wide range of fields of practice, such as mental health, physical and learning disabilities, child protection, child and family support, conditions of older age, end of life care and physical illnesses.