Care Planning in the Frail Elderly: GPPS data analysis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Care Planning in the Frail Elderly: Analysis of Data from the GP Patient Survey 2013-2016
IRAS ID
213830
Contact name
Alice Shiner
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East Anglia
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 1 months, 1 days
Research summary
Care planning is a clinical tool with significant potential to improve patient care. The holistic approach that it promotes may particularly benefit older, frail patients. However, despite strong political and clinical drivers care planning currently appears to be under-utilised, with only 3% of respondents to the most recent GP Patient Survey (GPPS) reporting having a written care plan, although 53% reported having a long-term condition.
The GPPS, which is sent to over a million people in the UK every year, has collected responses about Care Planning since 2013. Despite the fact that older, frail patients should stand to benefit most from care planning, an initial analysis of publically available data from the GPPS found that less than a third of frail elderly respondents reported having a written care plan. In addition, this group of patients were less involved in the care planning process.
This study aims to perform a detailed secondary analysis of the full national GPPS dataset. This analysis will seek to answer questions about the extent to which care planning is currently used amongst older frail people. It will establish whether there is a difference in the level of engagement with care planning amongst frail elderly respondents (who are expected to gain the most from care planning), compared to the remainder of the general population. It will also seek to identify factors associated with engagement in care planning, and how care planning affects use of out of hours services in this population. Finally, the data will be analysed to assess whether the level of engagement with care plans in this group has altered in the past 3 years.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/YH/0437
Date of REC Opinion
4 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion