The SINEPOST study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Safety INdEx of Prehospital On Scene Triage (SINEPOST): The derivation and validation of a risk prediction model to support ambulance clinical transport decisions on scene.
IRAS ID
260505
Contact name
Jamie Miles
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Yorkshire Ambulance Service
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Paramedics have specialist knowledge and skills in helping people in emergencies. For example, if you are involved in a road traffic collision, house fire or if your heart stops. These events are quite rare, and the bulk of ambulance service patients who call have problems that are described as ‘urgent’. These cases are where you may need access to healthcare and medical help, but there is only a very small chance your problem is life threatening.
The care of urgent patients is complex and trying to find the right place for their care can be hard. In 2014 in Yorkshire, up to 16.9% of patients could have avoided being taken by ambulance to the Emergency Department (ED). This group of patients had no special tests or treatments and were sent home. This means they had a minor problem that could have been managed elsewhere.
When the ED is busy, ambulances have to wait a long time to handover the care of their patients. In the winter of 2017 in England, 41,879 ambulance handovers took more than one hour. This delay stops ambulances being free to respond to the next emergency. These problems mean paramedics need to make sure the ED is the right place for their patient before they take them there.
This project aims to develop a tool to help with that decision. It is designed to show the paramedic the likelihood of ED benefiting the patient if they were transported. They can apply this tool to all their patients.
The first step will link data from the ambulance service with that from a large hospital. This data will show us the complete patient journey from their call for help through to leaving the ED. The dataset will be anonymised so we will only be able to see what happened in a journey, not whose journey it was. This information will help create a tool that identifies patients who may not need to be taken to the ED. The public will be
invited to face-to-face meetings to help the researcher produce a lay summary of this phase.The second step will test the tool in a data set similar to before but using a different destination hospital to make sure it can work in different settings. The dissemination would involve the public and there will be a range of ways they will be invited to participate. This includes being in a video which will be created by the public; for the public. This will introduce the tool to the wider public and patient audience. We plan for members who were involved in earlier stages to co-author and present publications relating to their involvement.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/YH/0360
Date of REC Opinion
11 Nov 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion