Wednesday 27 May 2015

Older people influencing improvements in acute hospital care for frail older people

Dr Sheila Kennedy, Health Services Researcher from the RATS Group in ScHARR, has successfully recruited over 40 Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) research volunteers to a national NIHR Health Services and Development Research funded project seeking to improve the outcomes and experiences of acute care for frail older people.  Sheila was one of the six co-applicants for funding and leads the PPI workstream. The other applicants are at Universities in Newcastle, Leicester and Southampton and the Nuffield Trust in London.
Nearly 20 PPI-ers recently commented and made suggestions on numerous documents being prepared for the research ethics approval process and this week, on May 13th, eight are participating in an advisory and validation exercise at a research meeting in London..
At the meeting, co-applicant Martin Bardsley, Head of Research and expert in NHS data analysis at the Nuffield Trust will explain the data and methods being used to identify the number and needs of frail older people in different areas of the UK, by examining patterns of service use data.  The Nuffield researchers want to hear what older members of the public think of the measures they are using at identifying frail older people and their patterns of service use over time within an area, and whether they think there are other indicators that might be better. 
A similar meeting at the University of Sheffield is planned for June 5th to enable PPI-ers from the Midlands and Northern England/Scotland to share their views.
The PPI research volunteers come from diverse locations across the UK including Blackburn, Bristol, Edinburgh, Enfield, Isle of Wight, King’s Lynn, Leicester, London, Newcastle, Norwich, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Stoke on Trent, Walsall and York. 

For further information about the project and or to ask about getting involved in future PPI activities, email: s.m.kennedy@sheffield.ac.uk  or phone 0114 222 8279

Written by Dr Sheila Kennedy

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