Referral to Pharmacists - Ambulance Clinician Experience Survey (REPLACES)

Falls in people aged 65 years and over are a common reason for calling the emergency ambulance service. Falls can be serious, with about 1 in 20 people having to be taken to hospital because they have been injured. Thankfully, in more than 4 out of 10 cases, people are not seriously injured and can be left at home. However, it is important that the reason for the fall is found and future falls are prevented where possible.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service can already make a referral to another local service to get specialist practical help for falls prevention when people are left at home after a fall. Research has shown that the safe use of medicines can prevent future falls, but that did not form. Now a new service has been set up for Yorkshire Ambulance Service to refer patients to the Leeds General Practice (GP) Confederation. A pharmacist working in the patients GP surgery will undertake a review of the patient's use of their medicines.

However, it is unknown how ambulance staff identify patients who may be at risk of future falls due to medicines being taken or issues with medicines management at home. This data is not currently collected in any ambulance patient records. It is also not known what their current practice is when a patient who is not managing their medicines well is identified. A literature search has revealed no papers on this topic. This research survey seeks to understand how ambulance clinicians identify and assist patients who are having difficulty in managing their medicines. Therefore, the results of this study are likely to provide new knowledge which will be generalisable to United Kingdom (UK) ambulance service practice.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Pharmacist-Patient Relations; Fall Patients
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Online survey

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 330

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • West Yorkshire
    • Wakefield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom, WF2 0XQ
      • Recruiting
      • Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust
      • Contact: Jane Shewan; Phone Number: +441924584224; Email: jane.shewan1@nhs.net
      • Principal Investigator: Rebecca McLaren

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Clinical staff working operationally, providing frontline ambulance care in Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust during the PREFACES project (24th May, 2019 to 31st May 2020)

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical staff working operationally, providing frontline ambulance care in Yorkshire Ambulance Service National Health Service (NHS) Trust during the PREFACES project (24th May, 2019 to 31st May 2020)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Clinical staff NOT working operationally, providing frontline ambulance care in Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust
• Non-clinical staff

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Observational Models: Cohort
• Time Perspectives: Prospective

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Weighted average of factors that identify patients having difficulty managing their medicines, ranked in order of importance by ambulance clinicians	Baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 30, 2019
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): June 30, 2020
• Study Completion (Anticipated): September 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 9, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): September 11, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 25, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 22, 2019
• Last Verified: November 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: YASRD123

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No