Who Knows Best?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Who knows best? Older people’s contribution to understanding and preventing emergency hospital admissions.
IRAS ID
160220
Contact name
Jon Glasby
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N /A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Faced with an ageing population, many of whom have long-term conditions, policy makers are worried that high levels of emergency hospital admissions are very expensive, leaving insufficient funding to invest in alternative community-based services. Successive governments have therefore attempted to make more effective and efficient use of hospital beds with various initiatives and incentives to reduce potentially avoidable admissions.
Emergency admissions of older people to hospital occur for diverse and complex reasons and different stakeholders often have differing views as to the nature of the problem and the best course of action. We believe that one of the limitations of existing studies is that they fail to include the perspectives of older people and their carers on their experiences of emergency admissions. This study therefore attempts to explore and understand the nature of emergency hospital admissions from different perspectives in order to identify potential solutions that could reduce the number of unplanned admissions.
We will review the existing research literature on the appropriateness of emergency admissions and undertake fieldwork in 3 sites where we will interview both professionals and older people and their carers about their recent experiences of having an unplanned hospital admission. Using a variety of methods we will seek people’s views about practical service and policy responses.
The research team will work with an Older People’s Reference group comprised of people who have had recent experience of an emergency hospital admission and the study will be overseen by a national sounding board of people who will help us integrate different perspectives. We will produce a short ‘Good practice guide’ from our findings to be sent to all hospitals in England and we will produce a short video for ‘Social Care TV’.REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/WM/1195
Date of REC Opinion
5 Nov 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion