A New Acute-At-Home Child and Adolescent Clinical Service: Evaluation of Impact

Abstract Background The Aim of the Acute Care at Home Team is to provide acute care to over 65's in the patient's own home, providing assessment and treatment of acute conditions such as pneumonia, urinary sepsis and heart failure. It is a multidisciplinary team that works together to streamline services to enable a patient to stay safely in their own home. A full comprehensive geriatric assessment is carried out in all patients to help improve patient outcomes. The patients have full access to in patient services such as scans, and x-rays. All blood tests are treated as urgent to ensure the patient is in no way disadvantaged by being treated by acute care at home compared with hospital care. The aims and objectives are to explore patient and family experiences and identify any areas for improvement. Methods A service users and carers experience Questionnaire (N=31) was used to gain insight into how satisfied the patient or family were with the service and what the experience was like having the team come into their home. Results Patient satisfaction with this Acute Care at Home Team was reported at 100%. Patients were happy with the care they received, 100% of patients were happy with staff's knowledge of their condition and treatment plan. All of the respondents stated they would both recommend the service and use it again. The qualitative responses were in keeping with 100% satisfaction in that they were positive in nature. Conclusion This service evaluation has shown that patient and carer experience of this Acute Care at Home Team is a positive one, with 100% satisfaction levels. There are some small areas to be improved upon, however the results show this service is providing the over 65 population with a good experience of being treated at home as an alternative to hospital care when acutely unwell.

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Experience of transition between a child and adolescent service and adult service for the treatment of eating disorders

Mental Health Review Journal ◽

10.1108/mhrj-01-2020-0005 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Jackie Wales ◽

Nicola Brewin ◽

Karima Susi ◽

Alison Eivors ◽

Debbie Whight ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Eating Disorders ◽

Qualitative Methodology ◽

Geographical Location ◽

Child And Adolescent ◽

Service Evaluation ◽

Valuable Insight ◽

Content Type ◽

Adult Services ◽

The Uk ◽

Effective Transfer

Purpose There is a dearth of research on what constitutes effective transfer of care from children’s and young people services to adult services for patients with eating disorders (EDs) in the UK. Transition has implications for continuity of care and particularly for early intervention which has the best prognosis. The purpose of this paper is to understand the experience of transition and identify facilitators and barriers to this. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative methodology was used. Focus groups (n = 4) were held with clinicians (n = 22) working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services or adult ED services. Individual interviews were conducted with patients (n = 5) who had commenced/completed transition to adult services and with parents/carers (n = 6) of patients invited for interview. Findings A number of factors may facilitate or impede transition and can be grouped into the broad themes of communication, managing the differences between services and timing of transition. Improvements in communication, clear explanation of service differences and flexibility around the timing of transitions may enhance the experience for patients and parents/carers. Research limitations/implications The service evaluation was limited to transition between two specialist ED services in one geographical location. The findings provide the basis for a wider research study to examine which factors are most important when planning transition from the perspectives of patients, parents/carers and clinicians. Originality/value This is the first study examining ED transitions in the UK. It provides valuable insight of the experience of service users and carers and highlights potential improvements when planning transitions for this patient group.

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