Stephen Peckham, S.Peckham@kent.ac.uk
Many NHS patients have complex conditions which require treatment and care from several organisations at once (e.g. general practice, community nursing, social services, pharmacy, occasional out-patients appointments etc.). This is especially so with frail older people. The better coordinated these services are, the more likely it is that these patients will be able to access the range of support required to maintain their health, avoid further illness and hospital admissions, and continue living in their own homes.
In recent years the NHS has introduced a number of new organisations and systems in order to coordinate better the care of people with complex health needs. These new approaches include GP-led health centres, ‘case management’ (where a community matron or other professional coordinates a patient’s care) and (in London especially) ‘polyclinics’. The aim of our research is to find out how these different approaches compare in terms of improving the coordination of patients’ care across multiple services. We will do this by interviewing patients with complex health care needs, their doctors, nurses and other health and social care staff, to find out what factors help them to coordinate the care that patients receive and which factors create difficulties. We will also examine the Swedish health system, which in many ways provides a good model for the English NHS, to find out how the Swedish system goes about integrating and coordinating care for patients with complex care needs.
Our aim is to find out what NHS services, and professionals working in them, can do to reduce the difficulties and to strengthen the coordination and integration of NHS services for patients who require care from multiple sources.
Funder/funding stream
Funder: NIHR via University of Plymouth
Funding: £18,071