Research project

CAtCH-NET

Project overview

Many older people within Hampshire and Isle of Wight (HIOW) live with several health conditions. These may suddenly worsen, requiring rapid assistance from healthcare professionals. Often it is best to provide this in the person’s own home, so urgent community-based services have expanded.

Despite this, many older people attend hospital within HIOW. Some are discharged within 24 hours, indicating they too might be better managed at home. Therefore, increasing home support is a priority. To achieve this, we need to understand how urgent care services for older people are currently working across both community and hospital settings.

Our project aims to understand current use of urgent care services for older people in HIOW, alongside factors that promote or hinder provision.
We will:
1. Establish the priorities of key stakeholders.
2. Describe the attributes of older people who are discharged within 24 hours from hospitals, who are seen by specialist teams for older people early in their arrival.
3. Explore experiences of healthcare professionals and patients regarding urgent care services for older people.
4. Learn the type and amount of data routinely collected within urgent community-based care services for older people within HIOW and whether we can link this together, to understand care pathways older people may experience.

Our results will describe the older people aided by urgent community-based services and those attending hospital who might be managed at home. It will describe factors that promote or hinder support at home. We will share findings within the region, to publicise the healthcare work in urgent care for older people. This will improve knowledge and aid in service design and delivery.

Staff

Lead researchers

Dr Natalie Cox

NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Geriatric Med.

Research interests

  • Appetite and Nutrition in Later Life
  • Urgent care for older people
Connect with Natalie
Other researchers

Dr Stephen Lim BM, PhD, MRCP(UK)

Principal Clinical Research Fellow
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Dr Sara Mckelvie DM, MSc, MRCGP, DGM, MBBS, MA

NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Gen Practice

Research interests

  • General Practice
  • Healthcare for Older Adults
  • Community-based alternatives to Hospitalisation
Connect with Sara

Dr Carole Fogg

Senior Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Use of health and social care ‘big data’ to characterise older people’s service use and outcomes, especially for people living with frailty or dementia.
  • Development and assessment of interventions to improve care and quality of life for older adults.
  • Methodological expertise: epidemiology, clinical trials of medicines and devices, feasibility studies, patient and public involvement and engagement with health services research.
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Dr Nicola Andrews

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Knowledge mobilisation
  • Ageing and frailty
  • Care homes, extra-care housing and home care
Connect with Nicola

Research outputs