These are designed to provide succinct summaries of evidence-informed service planning for reference by directors and other leaders of adult social care services. Building on evidence, policy and practice experience, these briefings offer quick summaries of key considerations and questions for reflection on a particular topic, also highlighting related work and support available from research in practice for adults.

Research and Policy Updates (RPUs) are intended to assist individuals with keeping up to date with national policy developments and with key research reports. We aim to provide early signposts to key documents, with the issues in January, April, July and October focusing on journal articles published in the previous three months.

RPUs are posted on the research in practice for adults website on the third Monday of each month and electronic copies are sent by e-mail to the Link Officers in each Partner agency on the same day. They should then be distributed to staff throughout their agency.

We appreciate that busy practitioners and managers rarely have time to read lengthy research studies yet wish to stay well informed. So we provide OutLines - short reviews of research evidence, each answering a key question related to an aspect of current health and social care practice for adults. In answering the question authors summarise the available evidence and detail the key implications for practice.

Our EiP for Councillors series seeks to provide a ready reference document outlining the essential policy and the available evidence in respect of a number of core practice issues. The topics are selected in consultation with councillors at the annual Councillors and Trustees seminar or from suggestions throughout the year. Each briefing includes a list of key questions that councillors can pursue with their agency.

The Key Issues series is designed to provide ready access to relevant policy, available evidence and emerging practice on topics of current importance. In contrast to the OutLines series, it addresses topics where the evidence base is currently less well-developed, but where practitioners and managers still need to access emerging evidence and information to help inform their practice.

Evidence Stories offer short accounts designed to whet the appetite for evidence-informed practice. The first six stories focus on examples provided by Partner agencies of how evidence has been used in a practice development.

Evidence Clusters are a practical resource for staff in research in practice for adults Partner agencies, aiming to provide accessible summaries of the most up-to-date, relevant evidence on key issues for policy and practice. They are only published on the research in practice for adults'  website, giving them the necessary flexibility to be updated as new evidence becomes available.

Please contact if you would like to:

• recommend a research paper or practice example for inclusion in one of the existing evidence clusters
• suggest a topic to be covered in a future evidence cluster
• discuss any aspect of evidence clusters

You may find helpful also to visit research in practice for adults' one-to-one project outputs.

The review was produced in response to a challenge from our Partnership Board who asked us to produce an independent review on the future of adult social care. The aim of  it is to offer an authoritative and evidence-based assessment of the development of adult social care between now and 2020. Wherever possible it seeks to draw on existing evidence and to consider likely future scenarios. The intention was twofold, to assess the current position and to assess the prospects for change.

The window of a decade was chosen to allow for an element of 'futures thinking', while also ensuring that the review is firmly rooted in the ways in which policy and practice may evolve within a tangible timescale. Four possible future scenarios are offered which pose a range of possible trajectories: residual service; incremental betterment; care crunch; and transformed wellbeing.

The review is in four parts: an overview report and three supplementary evidence reviews. Each section is freely available to download. Hard copies have been distributed to our Partner agencies; limited numbers are available to non-Partners, contact rachel@ripfa.org.uk for more information.

We very much hope that the review will be a useful starting point to provoke wide-ranging debate and reflection, both within and beyond our Partnership. To that end we really welcome your thoughts and comments.