Care After Presenting with Seizures (CAPS)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving access and coordination of care for adults presenting to emergency care with seizures: Care After Presenting with Seizures (CAPS).
IRAS ID
173222
Contact name
Alex Astor
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Care After Presenting with Seizures (CAPS) in Adults
More than 50,000 attendances at UK Emergency Departments (ED) each year are with a seizure and half are admitted. Many patients attend multiple times and yet the National Audit of Seizure management in Hospitals (NASH) shows that only a minority reach the specialist service that could prevent further seizures. Cheshire/Merseyside data show that only 8% of people with first seizures meet the NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) recommendation of a specialist review in two weeks.
The CAPS project aims to find out if actively helping patients to attend an early 2 week appointment will make the changes that reduce readmissions, re-attendances and improve quality of life. We will set up a nurse in each of the 3 hospitals in Merseyside, who will identify all who attended the ED in the previous 24 hours with a seizure and offer an appointment at a seizure clinic within the next fortnight. Nurses will facilitate travel and other arrangements to help patients attend. If patients miss an appointment, they will be followed up by the nurses and offered another appointment. Consent will be sought from the patients to be contacted at a future date to complete questionnaires related to Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs). These will allow us to analyse the patients’ views on the outcomes and appropriateness of the new scheme.
We will compare the 3 test hospitals with the other hospitals in the Merseyside/Cheshire area that access neurology services from The Walton Centre, and with the rest of the North West coast area.
If the new care pathway proves successful, it could be implemented more widely across the North West Coast and across the UK through the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSN).REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
15/WA/0207
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jun 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion