The Aphasia Partnership Training programme (APT) will be jointly led by Professor Rebecca Palmer (pictured above) from the University of Sheffield and Professor Madeline Cruice from City St George’s, University of London. Hosted by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, this project plans to co-design and evaluate a novel Communication Partner Training programme for people with aphasia and their communication partners.
Starting in Autumn 2025, the University of Sheffield's CTRU will support delivery of this large programme of work. The Sheffield CTRU will lead the evaluation of the APT intervention, once developed, in approximately 30 NHS speech and language therapy services.
Background
Approximately 40% of stroke survivors have the communication disorder ‘aphasia’ making it difficult to talk, understand what others say, read, and write. People with aphasia and their communication partners (family, friends, paid carers) cannot understand and support each other, leading to communication breakdown, frustration, distress, isolation and unhappiness for both people. Communication Partner Training aims to improve communication between people with aphasia and communication partners. Several small studies suggest this can help, although we need better evidence that it works. Additionally, it has not been described in enough detail for speech and language therapists to provide it. Existing research and our PPI discussions highlight that not many NHS patients and partners are offered this training.
Research aims
Develop a new Communication Partner Training programme and manual for NHS delivery to people with aphasia and their communication partners living in the community, in a programme called Aphasia Partnership Training (APT)
Evaluate APT and its value for money
Understand and develop resources to support UK wide NHS delivery of APT
Design and methods:
We will survey speech and language therapists nationally to understand what affects NHS provision of Communication Partner Training. People with aphasia, communication partners, speech and language therapists and researchers will collaboratively design a manual and learning package detailing how to deliver APT. We hope to then test out APT with 28 UK NHS Trusts that will randomly allocate 336 people with aphasia and their partners to receive APT and usual speech and language therapy or usual therapy alone to determine whether APT benefits people and is financially viable. We will also explore factors affecting successful delivery of APT in the NHS. After the first 50 people with aphasia and partners have been treated, we will discuss how well it is going and decide whether we should continue with the full trial. As an adaptive trial, we may then make some minor changes to the manual or learning package if findings from the first 50 people with aphasia and partners indicate that this would be useful.
Patient and public involvement:
A PPI group of 10 diverse people with aphasia and communication partners worked with us throughout our programme development grant and preparing this application. The group will continue to support and advise us on all aspects of the research.
Further information:
Read more about this study here:
UK-wide aphasia project awarded £3.8 million to improve post-stroke communication | News | The University of Sheffield