This work package will examine how health systems organise moving from primary care to secondary care; and what this experience is like for the children and the health professionals involved. This point of care can be a high risk scenario for the child in terms of quality and timeliness of care, patient safety or avoiding unnecessary procedures. In this work package we will also look at the relationship with social care in terms of moving from generalist to specialist care.
To find safe and efficient models of care transfer, we will:
- investigate how appropriate and effective the methods of referral and discharge are for the child or young person with potentially long term conditions;
- assess how primary care services work with social care services. We know it is important for these agencies to work together within the boundaries of respectful personalised support, and identify the optimal models or factors;
- examine undergraduate nursing and postgraduate public health nursing programmes, in terms of how prepared graduates are to care for children with complex needs and their families in the period of transition from primary to secondary care, particularly with regard to maximising care at home;
- seek user feedback in conjunction with the patient experience investigations in Work Package 1;
- link with work package 1 to build a business model of continuity that will track the events that trigger a transfer from primary to secondary care, and the involvement of social care or other agencies.