The SDEC Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What are the clinical outcomes and patient experiences of adults accessing medical same day emergency care services: a multi-phase design mixed methods study
IRAS ID
329403
Contact name
Holly Blake
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Background
Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) is a new way of providing urgent care to patients, with access to rapid assessment and tests, as an alternative to hospital admission. All NHS hospitals in England are required to offer SDEC services. But there is little published evidence about the safety and effectiveness of SDEC. So, there is a need for research into clinical outcomes, such as unplanned reattendance and death. There are no published studies on patient experience of SDEC, so there is a need to find out how patients feel about SDEC.
This study aims to provide evidence about SDEC, by establishing whether SDEC offers a safe, effective, and quality service to patients.
Design and Methods
This study has two core components:
Component A: A study of clinical outcomes - information from anonymised hospital record systems will be collected for analysis, to understand who is seen in SDEC, who needs inpatient admission, whether patients reattend for the same problem, and mortality rates. The information will be compared to patients who were admitted to hospital for a short time. This will show whether SDEC is safe and effective, compared with inpatient admission.
Component B: A survey and interviews conducted with SDEC patients – the survey will collect information about patient experiences of care from around 400 patients from two different SDEC services. This data will be analysed statistically and will also be used to develop themes to explore in interviews, which will take place with approximately 24 SDEC patients, to explore the patient experience of SDEC. This will help us understand the patient experience and the quality of SDEC services.
All the information gained will be brought together and interpreted, conclusions will be drawn and recommendations will be made to improve outcomes and experiences for patients.REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/SC/0124
Date of REC Opinion
3 Apr 2024
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion