Acute home visits in primary care: ambulance staff (patient interview)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Acute home visiting in primary care – what is the role of ambulance service practitioners? A qualitative exploratory study with patients
IRAS ID
266040
Contact name
Robert Barker
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Newcastle University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
BH183921, Newcastle University project reference
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 18 days
Research summary
Patients requiring home visits in primary care are predominantly older adults experiencing frailty, and living with multiple medical conditions and taking multiple medications . This places a significant demand on GP time, especially in rural areas where the time taken to travel between patients is significant. In response to this, three neighbouring practices in Northumberland, and the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), piloted an ambulance service practitioner home visiting service from November 2018 to March 2019. During routine working hours, two experienced NEAS practitioners performed up to twenty acute home visits per day across three practices. At least one practitioner was an Advanced Practitioner (AP), with a paramedic or nursing background.
Now that the pilot has ended, we would like to explore patient experiences of home visits conducted by ambulance service practitioners. We are seeking NHS REC permissions to conduct individual interviews with 10-20 patients who received a visit, to be carried out either over the telephone or in their own home. We will investigate the patient's experience of receiving a home visit from an ambulance service practitioner.
We will ensure all participants’ data are anonymised and stored securely. The study will start when permission is obtained, and completed by September 2019. The findings will be written up for publication. We anticipate that this will add to the research evidence for the role of paramedic practitioners working in primary care, and explore barriers and facilitators to this novel addition to primary care services.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EM/0215
Date of REC Opinion
1 Jul 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion