Targeted education to reduce non-urgent paediatric ED/UCC reattendance

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Distribution of targeted educational materials to families after they attend emergency or urgent care with a child under 5 years-old in a non-urgent situation, in order to reduce future repeat non-urgent attendances

  • IRAS ID

    229748

  • Contact name

    Ben Holden

  • Contact email

    ben.holden@nhs.net

  • Sponsor organisation

    Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 11 months, 0 days

  • Research summary

    This study aims to test whether it is possible to reduce pressure on children’s emergency departments (called paediatric emergency departments or PEDs) and urgent care centres (UCCs). We aim to do this by sending out targeted education materials to the parents or carers of children under 5 years-old, after their child has recently attended PED or UCC with a health issue that was non-urgent and could likely have been dealt with elsewhere (either at home with advice or by a primary care service).

    High numbers of non-urgent attendances at PED (i.e. attendances for illness that could have safely been treated elsewhere) increase waiting times, inconvenience families, incur significant costs to the NHS, and reduce the time hospital staff can spend treating severely ill children.

    We believe our proposed intervention will benefit individual families as well as the healthcare system as a whole. Individual families may benefit if they had the confidence and knowledge they needed to make fully-informed decisions about how and when to select the appropriate healthcare service for their children. This could save them time and stress when caring for an unwell child.

    This study is funded by the Health Foundation and will take place in St Mary’s Hospital PED and Northwick Park Hospital UCC. During the trial period a healthcare professional will identify non-urgent attendances three times a week. Half of the patients will then be randomly allocated to receive an educational bundle posted to their address after their attendance. The study will run for 8 months, and anonymous data will be analysed over an 11 month period.

    Anonymised patient records will be analysed to determine whether the patients who received the educational bundle are less likely to make a non-urgent repeat visit to PED or UCC over the remainder of the trial period, compared with patients who received no educational bundle. We expect that the group of families that receive the educational bundle will have a lower rate of reattendance.

  • REC name

    London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    17/LO/1390

  • Date of REC Opinion

    31 Aug 2017

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion