Qualitative REDUCE study V1 [COVID-19]

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  REducing unwarranted variation in the Delivery of high qUality hip fraCture services in England and Wales; the REDUCE study

• IRAS ID

  282767

• Contact name

  Rachael Gooberman-Hill

• Contact email

  r.gooberman-hill@ bristol.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Bristol

• Duration of Study in the UK

  3 years, 5 months, 22 days

• Research summary

  Breaking a hip is a devastating injury affecting 80,000 older adults in the UK each year. The underlying cause is usually osteoporosis which causes bones to weaken and break. Despite national guidelines, how services organise hip fracture care varies greatly across UK hospitals. Unfortunately, how people recover varies greatly too. Differences in how services are organised affects this. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on how hip fracture care is delivered and hospitals have had to quickly adapt and reorganise services. However, there has been considerable difference in how hospitals have done this and the impact on patients is unclear. \n\nThe study aims to identify barriers and facilitators to the delivery of hip fracture care. This will enable us to identify some of the challenges hospitals face in providing high-quality care, along with potential solutions to enable them to perform at a higher standard. It will also explore the ways hospitals reorganised care during COVID-19 and factors that helped services adapt during this crisis. Doing so will provide information that can be used to improve services across the country.\n\nOne-on-one discussions (interviews) will be conducted with healthcare professionals involved in delivering hip fracture care at four hospitals. Interviews will explore their views and experiences of delivering hip fracture care, both before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. An estimated 10 - 15 healthcare professionals will be interviewed at each hospital, totalling around 40 - 60 professionals. Interviews will be audio-recorded, written out word for word and analysed by identifying recurring themes and subthemes in the responses. Findings from this study will be used to help other hospitals deliver high quality hip fracture services.\n

• REC name

  N/A

• REC reference

  N/A