Project Director: Jan Gilbertson
Project Duration: 2017-2018
The Doncaster Hospital Discharge Pathway study is an in depth qualitative evaluation of two investment areas of the Better Care Fund: the Hospital Discharge Pathway (HDP) and associated discharge pathways. The study follows patients' journeys from hospital discharge in order to track patient and carer experience, impacts and outcomes. It provides a unique insight into what navigating the health and social care system feels like to those who are experiencing it. Detailed case studies and timelines were developed and these are a visual representation of the patient journey. Each timeline contains research derived key messages for the planning and delivery of health and social care services. However, this is not enough to ensure that the evidence gets into policy and practice. The research team have an interest in and experience of doing this and in particular around the use of pen portraits as the means of mobilising knowledge.
For this project we intend to undertake additional depth analysis of patient and carer interviews and produce appropriate resources for use by the NHS and other organisations. These outputs will be developed using co-productive approaches we have previously used (Cooke et al., 2016) and ‘pen portraits' (Tod et al., 2012, 2016) or Research Derived Actionable Tool (RDAT) will be developed. These outputs will be useful within Doncaster but will also be transferable to other places. We intend to seek further funding to evaluate the impact of such tools in terms of building the bridge between evidence and practice.
Project costs are approximately £15k and we have secured funding from CLAHRC YH, Doncaster CCG and Doncaster Healthwatch to support this work.
Further information regarding this project can be found here.
The project team also includes Professor Angela Tod (School of Nursing, University of Sheffield), Professor Jo Cooke (capacity lead, CLAHRC YH), Amanda Stocks (AJ Stocks Ltd), Susan Hampshire (Public Health Principal, DMBC, Honorary Research Fellow, Scharr).
