Storytelling in Aintree Hospital Emergency Department
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Acceptability, Feasibility and Impact of Delivering a Writer in Residence Programme for Staff and High Intensity Use Patients at an Emergency Department in the Northwest of England
IRAS ID
357428
Contact name
Miriam Taegtmeyer
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 8 days
Research summary
High intensity use of the Emergency Department (ED) can be defined as more than expected attendance (attending the ED more than 5 times a year) and may be caused by social factors, mental health diagnoses and inaccessible primary/community services. 58% of high intensity users at Aintree ED are from the most deprived decile of in England. A multidisciplinary team (community innovation team) of clinicians, researchers and community organisation representatives that work with people who frequently attend ED was formed to review attendance data, identify problems and come up with local solutions. Its work was registered locally as a quality improvement project. Storytelling has been used previously as an effective tool to improve wellbeing and the team used funding from an NIHR grant on community quality improvement called “ReCITE” (https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/recite) to recruit a Writer in Residence to work with high intensity users and ED staff. As part of the quality improvement project, the writer will run one-to-one and group writing sessions with selected consenting patients and creative workshops, including book clubs and creative writing sessions, with engaged ED staff. The writer will facilitate patients and staff to tell their stories with the aim of empowering them to bring about a positive change in their lives.
We propose to conduct a mixed-methods evaluation alongside this quality improvement project with two components. Firstly, qualitative interviews with patients, staff and community innovation team members will explore how acceptable and feasible the sessions were and the impact on participants. Secondly, we will analyse routinely collected pseudo-anonymised ED attendance to evaluate whether engagement with the Writer in Residence has reduced patient attendance to ED, broken down by demographic group.
The study will provide insight on the acceptability, feasibility and impact of storytelling in a healthcare setting for both selected high intensity users of ED and staff.REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/SW/0102
Date of REC Opinion
15 Aug 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion