Community testing - programme implementation: health board leads' experiences

Research methods and sampling

The data presented here was collected between 1^st December 2021 and 25^th February 2022. A qualitative approach involving conducting semi-structured interviews was chosen to ensure that local leads' views of the implementation of the Community Testing Programme were captured. Interviews were conducted via video call on Teams due to Covid restrictions on face-to-face research at the time of fieldwork.

Each interview lasted about 60 minutes to limit the disruption that study participation could have caused to work schedules and other responsibilities, as well as to safeguard participants' wellbeing. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The transcripts have been analysed by theme for comparison purposes. Verbatim quotes are included in this report as examples of the research findings to present participants' voices.

Fourteen leads belonging to 12 Health Boards took part in the research. They were interviewed individually or together with other leads from the same Health Board. The leads who oversaw the Community Testing Programme had a varied professional background and worked in a number of different roles (Directors of Public Health, Consultants in Public Health, Health Improvement Managers, Researchers, Evaluation Managers, Resilience Officers, Service Operations Managers). Some had taken part in the Programme since its launch, while others joined at a later stage.

Information about each Health Board and individual participants has been anonymised in this report. The report has been shared with research participants before publication to ensure that they are content with the way their views and experiences are being represented and that they feel their anonymity has been protected.