PRIMA Comparative Case Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Optimising patient risk management in urgent primary care services (PRIMA): A comparative case study
IRAS ID
328479
Contact name
Rebecca K Barnes
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford / Research Governance, Ethics and Assurance
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, 29 days
Research summary
Why?
Urgent primary care services are provided by a variety of organisations and play a vital role in assessing patients and managing clinical risk when GP surgeries are closed.
The management of patient risk outside of hospital remains poorly understood and under-researched. Without greater understanding, we cannot provide evidence-based guidance to providers about mitigating patient risks or know what information to share with service users, or how best to advise service users about how to keep themselves or others safe during an episode of urgent care.What?
This study will investigate the everyday work of managing risk being done by services, their staff, and by patients and their parents/guardians/companions using these services in order to optimise patient safety.
Who?
We will recruit organisations providing urgent primary care services, staff members, and service users. In particular, patients who may be more at risk of poor health outcomes including:
• Children
• People experiencing mental health problems
• Frail and older people with multiple long-term conditions
• People at the end of life
• People with special access requirements.Where?
The study will be conducted in England and Wales in the following types of urgent primary care services: NHS 111, GP Out-of-Hours, and Urgent Treatment Centres.
How?
We will recruit approximately six service case studies. Our researchers will spend approximately six to eight weeks in each site, making observations, interviewing staff, audio or video-recordings of patient contacts, and reviewing record entries. Following the recordings, we will provide a questionnaire, asking service users whether they recalled and understood any risk management advice given, and what happened next. We will then conduct interviews with a sample of these service users to understand more about their experiences and what information is most important and useful to them in order to help them stay safe during an episode of urgent care.
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
25/WA/0009
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jan 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion