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Article History

Received: 21 September 2018

Accepted: 21 February 2019

First Online: 1 March 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Guidance was sought from the Imperial College London Research Ethics Committee which advised that formal ethical approval was not required, as the online survey was deemed low-risk, involving non-invasive and non-sensitive information, of which the participants would remain non-identifiable and were not defined as ‘vulnerable’. Informed verbal consent to participate was received from all nursing homes that wished to participate in the study. The ethics committee advised that informed verbal consent could be obtained, waiving the need for written consent, given the low-risk, non-invasive, non-sensitive nature of the study and because the research survey was deployed via an online survey platform (Qualtrics).

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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