Partnerships for change in care placements
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Partnerships for change in care placements: mapping opportunities for innovation by discharge to housing support schemes as an alternative to transfers from acute to community hospital settings
IRAS ID
254635
Contact name
Lynne Williams
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Prifysgol, Bangor University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 18 days
Research summary
Exploring the potential of housing support schemes as a means of alternative placement to improve health outcomes:
The research is asking "what is the feasibility of housing support schemes as a pathway to alternative discharge/transfers from acute to community hospital settings?". It is of relevance as consistently, discharge planning as been deemed as complex. Recent report (King's Fund, 2018) stated the rising costs of keeping older patients who no longer need acute care in hospital as opposed to being discharged home, it is thought to cost an estimated £820 million annually in England. Therefore, it is both of importance to the patients and public. The research is being funded by KESS2 at Bangor University as part of a MRes qualification. Benefits for participants include adding to the wealth of research and improving discharge planning.
The area being studied is discharge planning and understanding the processes and how things work within the institution. Those who will be eligible for this research study will be those involved within the discharge planning process within the hospital setting e.g. Doctor, Social Worker, Ward Manager etc. The types of the study in which the study will be conducted are within the two NHS hospital sites chosen.
The study will last two to three months involving participant observation and interviews.
The main issue when designing both the research question and methodology was that existing literature tends to focus on discussions surrounding the benefits and limitations of sheltered housing, housing support schemes, existing rehabilitation units and various other alternative discharge planning methods. Although this research seeks to build on existing knowledge surrounding the feasibility of a housing support scheme as an alternative hospital discharge method, it also hopes to lessen the knowledge gap of the discharge planning process by the use of institutional ethnography involving participant observation and interviews along statistical review looking at the characteristics of patients leaving the NHS case study sites. For a recent report by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales established that there needs to be a "greater clarity over the roles and responsibilities of those healthcare professional involved in the discharge process" (2018, 5). Therefore, it was thought that a mixed methods study would be appropriate as opposed to a single method as there is the value of the integration component allowing for better confidence in the conclusions and allow ones to build on ideas for future research.
REC name
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REC reference
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