Background: The frequency at which patients should have their vital signs (e.g. blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation) measured on hospital wards is currently unknown. Current National Health Service monitoring protocols are based on expert opinion but supported by little empirical evidence. The challenge is finding the balance between insufficient monitoring (risking missing early signs of deterioration and delays in treatment) and over-observation of stable patients (wasting resources needed in other aspects of care).
Objective: Provide an evidence-based approach to creating monitoring protocols based on a patient's risk of deterioration and link these to nursing workload and economic impact.
Design: Our study consisted of two parts: (1) an observational study of nursing staff to ascertain the time to perform vital sign observations; and (2) a retrospective study of historic data on patient admissions exploring the relationships between National Early Warning Score and risk of outcome over time. These were underpinned by opinions and experiences from stakeholders.
Setting and participants: Observational study: observed nursing staff on 16 randomly selected adult general wards at four acute National Health Service hospitals. Retrospective study: extracted, linked and analysed routinely collected data from two large National Health Service acute trusts; data from over 400,000 patient admissions and 9,000,000 vital sign observations.
Results: Observational study found a variety of practices, with two hospitals having registered nurses take the majority of vital sign observations and two favouring healthcare assistants or student nurses. However, whoever took the observations spent roughly the same length of time. The average was 5:01 minutes per observation over a 'round', including time to locate and prepare the equipment and travel to the patient area. Retrospective study created survival models predicting the risk of outcomes over time since the patient was last observed. For low-risk patients, there was little difference in risk between 4 hours and 24 hours post observation.
Conclusions: We explored several different scenarios with our stakeholders (clinicians and patients), based on how 'risk' could be managed in different ways. Vital sign observations are often done more frequently than necessary from a bald assessment of the patient's risk, and we show that a maximum threshold of risk could theoretically be achieved with less resource. Existing resources could therefore be redeployed within a changed protocol to achieve better outcomes for some patients without compromising the safety of the rest. Our work supports the approach of the current monitoring protocol, whereby patients' National Early Warning Score 2 guides observation frequency. Existing practice is to observe higher-risk patients more frequen
Background: Clinical guidelines commonly recommend preventative treatments for people above a risk threshold. Therefore, decision-makers must have faith in risk prediction tools and model-based cost-effectiveness analyses for people at different levels of risk. Two problems that arise are inadequate handling of competing risks of death and failing to account for direct treatment disutility (i.e. the hassle of taking treatments). We explored these issues using two case studies: primary prevention of cardiovascular disease using statins and osteoporotic fracture using bisphosphonates.
Objectives: Externally validate three risk prediction tools [QRISK®3, QRISK®-Lifetime, QFracture-2012 (ClinRisk Ltd, Leeds, UK)]; derive and internally validate new risk prediction tools for cardiovascular disease [competing mortality risk model with Charlson Comorbidity Index (CRISK-CCI)] and fracture (CFracture), accounting for competing-cause death; quantify direct treatment disutility for statins and bisphosphonates; and examine the effect of competing risks and direct treatment disutility on the cost-effectiveness of preventative treatments.
Design, participants, main outcome measures, data sources: Discrimination and calibration of risk prediction models (Clinical Practice Research Datalink participants: aged 25-84 years for cardiovascular disease and aged 30-99 years for fractures); direct treatment disutility was elicited in online stated-preference surveys (people with/people without experience of statins/bisphosphonates); costs and quality-adjusted life-years were determined from decision-analytic modelling (updated models used in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence decision-making).
Results: CRISK-CCI has excellent discrimination, similar to that of QRISK3 (Harrell's c = 0.864 vs. 0.865, respectively, for women; and 0.819 vs. 0.834, respectively, for men). CRISK-CCI has systematically better calibration, although both models overpredict in high-risk subgroups. People recommended for treatment (10-year risk of ≥ 10%) are younger when using QRISK-Lifetime than when using QRISK3, and have fewer observed events in a 10-year follow-up (4.0% vs. 11.9%, respectively, for women; and 4.3% vs. 10.8%, respectively, for men). QFracture-2012 underpredicts fractures, owing to under-ascertainment of events in its derivation. However, there is major overprediction among people aged 85-99 years and/or with multiple long-term conditions. CFracture is better calibrated, although it also overpredicts among older people. In a time trade-off exercise (n = 879), statins exhibited direct treatment disutility of 0.034; for bisphosphonates, it was greater, at 0.067. Inconvenience also influenced preferences in best-worst scaling (n = 631). Updated cost-effectiveness analysis generates more quality-adjusted life-years among people with below-average cardiovascul
Background: Transforming care so that people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people can receive support at home rather than in hospital settings is a key priority, but progress has been slow. Despite significant national debate, little previous research has engaged directly with people in hospital, their families or front-line staff to understand the issues from their perspectives.
Objectives: This research seeks to better understand the experiences of people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people in long-stay hospital settings, their families and front-line staff - using this knowledge to create practice guides and training materials to support new understandings and ways of working.
Design: Following a structured review of the literature, we sought to work with up to 10 people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people in three case-study sites (2021-22), supplementing this with interviews with family members and commissioners; interviews/focus groups with hospital staff, social workers, advocates and care providers; information from case files; and observations of multidisciplinary meetings.
Setting: Three 'long-stay' hospital settings in England.
Participants: Twenty-seven people in hospital, together with families, health and social care staff and commissioners.
Results: • People in hospital report widespread frustration, feel that hospital environments are not conducive to getting/staying well, and face multiple barriers to leaving hospital. Without someone to fight for them, people struggle to overcome the inertia built into our current systems and processes. • Front-line staff are equally frustrated and describe a complex and seemingly dysfunctional system which they find almost impossible to navigate. • Hospital staff from different professional backgrounds do not have a shared sense of how many people really need to be in hospital or how many people could be cared for in different settings - suggesting that different definitions, world views and professional judgements might be at play. • Hospital staff are frustrated about what they see as the difficulty of discharging people into community services, while community services are equally frustrated about what they see as a risk-averse approach which they feel can lack an up-to-date knowledge of what is possible to achieve in the community. • Despite over a decade of policy attempts to resolve these issues, very significant barriers remain.
Limitations: This research explored the experiences of a small number of people, but has done so in significant depth. The research was undertaken in secure settings, during COVID and in a difficult external policy and practice context, and so has had to be very flexible and empathetic in order to build relationships and make the research possible. Future research cou
Background: Perinatal mental health difficulties can occur during pregnancy or after birth and mental illness is a leading cause of maternal death. It is therefore important to identify the barriers and facilitators to implementing and accessing perinatal mental health care.
Objectives: Our research objective was to develop a conceptual framework of barriers and facilitators to perinatal mental health care (defined as identification, assessment, care and treatment) to inform perinatal mental health services.
Methods: Two systematic reviews were conducted to synthesise the evidence on: Review 1 barriers and facilitators to implementing perinatal mental health care; and Review 2 barriers to women accessing perinatal mental health care. Results were used to develop a conceptual framework which was then refined through consultations with stakeholders.
Data sources: Pre-planned searches were conducted on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychInfo and CINAHL. Review 2 also included Scopus and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Review methods: In Review 1, studies were included if they examined barriers or facilitators to implementing perinatal mental health care. In Review 2, systematic reviews were included if they examined barriers and facilitators to women seeking help, accessing help and engaging in perinatal mental health care; and they used systematic search strategies. Only qualitative papers were identified from the searches. Results were analysed using thematic synthesis and themes were mapped on to a theoretically informed multi-level model then grouped to reflect different stages of the care pathway.
Results: Review 1 included 46 studies. Most were carried out in higher income countries and evaluated as good quality with low risk of bias. Review 2 included 32 systematic reviews. Most were carried out in higher income countries and evaluated as having low confidence in the results. Barriers and facilitators to perinatal mental health care were identified at seven levels: Individual (e.g. beliefs about mental illness); Health professional (e.g. confidence addressing perinatal mental illness); Interpersonal (e.g. relationship between women and health professionals); Organisational (e.g. continuity of carer); Commissioner (e.g. referral pathways); Political (e.g. women's economic status); and Societal (e.g. stigma). These factors impacted on perinatal mental health care at different stages of the care pathway. Results from reviews were synthesised to develop two MATRIx conceptual frameworks of the (1) barriers and (2) facilitators to perinatal mental health care. These provide pictorial representations of 66 barriers and 39 facilitators that intersect across the care pathway and at different levels.
Limitations: In Review 1 only 10% of abstracts we
Background: People experiencing mental health crises in the community often present to emergency departments and are admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Because of the demands on emergency department and inpatient care, psychiatric decision units have emerged to provide a more suitable environment for assessment and signposting to appropriate care.
Objectives: The study aimed to ascertain the structure and activities of psychiatric decision units in England and to provide an evidence base for their effectiveness, costs and benefits, and optimal configuration.
Design: This was a mixed-methods study comprising survey, systematic review, interrupted time series, synthetic control study, cohort study, qualitative interview study and health economic evaluation, using a critical interpretive synthesis approach.
Setting: The study took place in four mental health National Health Service trusts with psychiatric decision units, and six acute hospital National Health Service trusts where emergency departments referred to psychiatric decision units in each mental health trust.
Participants: Participants in the cohort study (n = 2110) were first-time referrals to psychiatric decision units for two 5-month periods from 1 October 2018 and 1 October 2019, respectively. Participants in the qualitative study were first-time referrals to psychiatric decision units recruited within 1 month of discharge (n = 39), members of psychiatric decision unit clinical teams (n = 15) and clinicians referring to psychiatric decision units (n = 19).
Outcomes: Primary mental health outcome in the interrupted time series and cohort study was informal psychiatric hospital admission, and in the synthetic control any psychiatric hospital admission; primary emergency department outcome in the interrupted time series and synthetic control was mental health attendance at emergency department. Data for the interrupted time series and cohort study were extracted from electronic patient record in mental health and acute trusts; data for the synthetic control study were obtained through NHS Digital from Hospital Episode Statistics admitted patient care for psychiatric admissions and Hospital Episode Statistics Accident and Emergency for emergency department attendances. The health economic evaluation used data from all studies. Relevant databases were searched for controlled or comparison group studies of hospital-based mental health assessments permitting overnight stays of a maximum of 1 week that measured adult acute psychiatric admissions and/or mental health presentations at emergency department. Selection, data extraction and quality rating of studies were double assessed. Narrative synthesis of included studies was undertaken and meta-analyses were performed where sufficient studies reported outcomes.
Results:
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