Navigating Healthcare
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The mechanisms enabling patients to navigate the healthcare system.
IRAS ID
327485
Contact name
Siân Slade
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Swansea University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 8 days
Research summary
The aim of the study is to understand the mechanisms that enable patients to access and manage (navigate) their healthcare journey across levels of healthcare (community and hospital).
The background is that whilst national health policy outlines the importance of patient-centred care and moving towards self-care models, health systems can be challenging for patients to navigate. For example, as described by Caught in the Maze by the Macmillan Foundation.
This research seeks to understand the mechanisms that enable patients to navigate their healthcare from the viewpoints of patients and carers, healthcare professionals and policy makers. The benefits of the study are to provide visibility of the different stakeholder inputs as to the progress being made towards patient-centred care at both an individual and systems level. This is deemed a goal that patients, professionals and policy makers have an interest in.
The study will be conducted as qualitative research with 4 study arms recruiting up to 46 participants in total. These will be through semi-structured interviews with national health policy key informants (6-8), regional health board leaders (or delegates) (6) and case-study place-based research consisting of semi-structured interviews with health care professionals (16, 8 in hospital and 8 in primary/community care) and through patient/carer focus groups (2 groups of 8) recruited through the Patient Experience lead sent to individuals on the health board advisory register. Recruitment will be through purposive sampling and snowballing for all professional and policy participants through an email letter invitation to participate facilitated by the regional health board. The interviews will last for 30 minutes with 1 hour time slots scheduled and the focus groups will run for 45 minutes with a 1 hour time slot. The research will be conducted in August 2023 both face-to-face and through virtual platforms per the local protocol and practice.
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/0752
Date of REC Opinion
14 Aug 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion