ARRIVE (Stage 2)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
ARRIVE - Ambulance paramedics Responding to urgent patient Requests In general practice for home Visits - Evaluation development (Stage 2)
IRAS ID
270534
Contact name
Grayham Mclean
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Primary care services in the UK are under pressure, and sometimes there are shortages of GPs to see people, in particular when patients need a home visit. One solution is to have other health professional such as paramedics carry out home visits. Across the UK various initiatives have seen paramedics working for general practices ‘on loan’ from ambulance services, or employed directly by practices. We do not know which approach is best, and whether these initiatives are effective, safe, acceptable to patients and carers, or what impact they have on other parts of the health service. The ARRIVE study is the first step in finding the answers.
We aim to assess whether it is feasible to carry out a full evaluation of paramedics working in primary care, and what would be involved in doing this.
We will link with people who understand these new approaches to get a clear picture of how they are meant to work, and what improvements we would hope to see. We will look at three different places across Wales – two where paramedics are working in primary care, and one where they aren’t, for comparison. Over a year we will collect information on home visits requested and how practices respond, patients’ health care contacts, patient satisfaction, any challenges, and costs. We will talk to people affected – patients and carers, paramedics, doctors and other general practice staff, and managers from the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) and the health board to help understand how well they think it’s working. We will then decide whether we can carry out a full evaluation of paramedics working in general practice. If our results show that we can, we will develop a follow on UK-wide study to assess whether these schemes are safe, acceptable to patients and carers, effective and efficient.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
20/WA/0034
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion