Identifying ideas to improve out of hours palliative care safety
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Identifying ideas to improve the safety and quality of palliative care services for patients in the out of hours primary care setting
IRAS ID
228524
Contact name
Huw Williams
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Palliative care patients sometimes receive less than ideal care in general practice. Through understanding reported causes of previous unsafe and /or suboptimal care, priorities can be identified to inform a quality improvement (QI) project. \n\nWe have conducted an analysis of 1,200 patient safety incident reports involving patients requiring palliative care in the out-of-hours GP setting. These patient safety incident reports are held in the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) a repository of examples of unsafe care in England and Wales. By analysing the free text descriptions of what happened and the reported reasons why, we have identified that:\nProvision, management and maintenance of syringe driver medications; \nAccessing appropriate care and advice in a timely manner and \nnot achieving preferred place of care are major issues reported by frontline professionals in the Out-of-hours setting. \nThis IRAS application is to:\n1. Take these findings of the mixed-methods analysis to an engagement event of stakeholders of the OOH service to generate discussions and ideas on what might be a priority area in this local OOH primary care service. The outcome of these discussions will inform a Quality Improvement project to be undertaken within the Health Board OOH service. \n2. Undertake an evaluation of the quality improvement project. \n\nThis work is supported by a Palliative Care Research Fellowship provided jointly by the Royal College of General Practitioners and Marie Curie (http://www.rcgp.org.uk/news/2016/december/out-of-hours-study-awarded-rcgp-marie-curie-palliative-care-research-fellowship.aspx)
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
17/WA/0222
Date of REC Opinion
22 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion