Frequent users of the emergency department V1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Frequent users of the emergency department: improving services and standardising services- a qualitative study study.
IRAS ID
312761
Contact name
Elspeth Guthrie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
MREC 21-061, Ethics approval for quantitative analyses in a different workstream
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 14 days
Research summary
A small number of people, termed frequent users (FUs), account for a large number of attendances at Emergency Departments (EDs) in England. Frequent users have a range of complex physical and mental health problems, with the highest users often having both physical and mental health issues. Recently, across England, EDs have been encouraged to set up services for frequent users, most of which involve liaison mental health teams who are often based in EDs and there are now over 79, with more being planned. Whilst there is local evidence from some of the services that they result in a reduction in attendance at ED and large cost savings, this is not confirmed by randomised controlled trials. Our research involves a programme of work with interlinking studies. This part of the programme involves the in-depth study of 4 different sites which offer specific help for people who attend the emergency department on a frequent basis. We know from previous work that at present in England there are roughly 80 such services linked to EDs and will be able to identify these sites from a routine national survey which is currently being conducted. We plan to contact 20 of these sites to obtain more details about their individual services. Based on the information we obtain, we will select 4 for in-depth study. At each of the sites we will interview users of the frequent user service and staff who work in the services and emergency services to obtain a greater understanding of people's experience of treatment and what factors help or hinder recovery for service users. We will feed these findings into the results from other parts of the programme to develop advice and guidance which we will then cascade down to service, beginning with the 4 sites we have studied.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/WM/0055
Date of REC Opinion
5 May 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion