Urgent care: Sense-making and help-seeking
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A study of sense-making strategies and help-seeking behaviours associated with the use and provision of urgent care services
IRAS ID
179951
Contact name
Joanne Turnbull
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 30 days
Research summary
Urgent care includes a range of services (out-of-hours, walk-in centres, NHS 111) designed to improve access and manage rising demand. These are closely linked with emergency services. Patients that perceive they need urgent care are required to access and navigate a complex system of services. Health policy has tried to reduce unnecessary ED attendances by guiding patients to get the 'right advice in the right place, first time', and provide better support for people to care for themselves. However, effective service provision requires a much deeper understanding of the factors that influence patients help-seeking and choices. Producing rigorous evidence underpinned by a robust theoretical model of patient decision making will inform the development of future models of urgent care provision.
We will investigate what patients think and feel about urgent care services, and how and why they use them to develop a conceptual model to explain patient choices, decisions and behaviour in relation to urgent care. There are three parts to the study:
1) literature review of policy documents and research to identify meanings and definitions of urgent care from perspectives (policy, service providers, patient) and citizens' panels convened to debate how to define and understand urgent care
2) Two qualitative interviews (with 6 month interval) with 105 service users / public to identify and explain why patients make contact with urgent care, their choices and the 'work' it involves for patients to access and navigate available urgent care services. Participants will be drawn from a geographical area served by one NHS 111 provider (people who have used NHS 111, EDs, urgent care services). Participants will be asked to participate in two interviews (1 hour per interview) 6 months apart.
3) Develop conceptual model from literature review, citizens' panels and interviews to explain urgent care use and patient decision making.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EM/0329
Date of REC Opinion
1 Aug 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion