What are the barriers to effective hospital discharges?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What are the barriers to effective hospital discharges?
IRAS ID
228970
Contact name
Christopher Farmer
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Kent
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 0 months, 22 days
Research summary
What are the barriers to effective hospital discharges?
Delays in discharging patients from acute hospital services leads to difficulties finding beds for new patients, which in turn, puts pressure on other parts of the health service. For patients are already in hospital, stays longer than necessary put patients at risk of hospital acquired infections and reduced functionality.
The aim of the research is to identify barriers to the discharge process in order to provide an effective, efficient, and safe service.
All patients with capacity who are over the age of 18 will be eligible to be contacted once discharged to discuss their own discharge from hospital to identify good and bad experiences from the patient’s perspective.
This study will take place in East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust.
It will last 2 weeks and a maximum of 10 patients will be interviewed via telephone 48 hours after discharge. Each interview will last a maximum of 15 minutes.
Analysis of previously collected data will also be performed to identify the number of hospital beds being occupied by patients no longer requiring hospital care and the barriers to their discharge. This is an analysis of secondary data and does not require ethics approval(See A13).
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
17/NI/0127
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jul 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion