£2.5 Million Research Project To Improve The Care Of Older People Is Launched At Nottingham University Hospitals, England

Main Category: Seniors / Aging
Also Included In: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 01 Dec 2008 - 2:00 PST

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A public meeting is being held on Monday 1 December which will mark the launch of a £2.5 million research project at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), designed to improve the care of older people locally and across the NHS.

The research team is made up of doctors, nurses, therapists, academics and voluntary sector workers based at NUH and the University of Nottingham. The project will run for five years and involve hundreds of local patients, their relatives and carers.

The £2.5 million research grant was awarded to NUH in August 2008 by the Department of Health through the National Institute for Health Services Research (NIHR).

Over the next five years the money will be used to research and improve the health care provided for older people in Nottingham and across the country.

Alongside the research, the team will be holding regular public open meetings to engage and involve the wider community, encourage discussion and ensure that research findings inform clinical practice as quickly as possible for the benefit of older patients.

Professor John Gladman, Professor of Medicine of Older People and Research Team Leader for the project, said: "This is the only research grant for older people awarded by the NIHR and we are very proud to be hosting the project here at NUH. We are also delighted that older people are becoming a research priority and that, because of our reputation for health care of the older person, we have been chosen to lead the way."

The team is studying three groups of older people over the next five years in a bid to improve care across organisational boundaries. They will study three groups of older people; those in care homes, those who come to hospital following a crisis, such as a fall, and then go home within 24 hours and those who arrive in hospital with both physical and mental health problems, such as depression.

To launch the project the team is holding its first public meeting on 1 December at 12.30pm at Trent Vineyard on Lenton Lane. 70 people are attending the event from local care homes and the voluntary sector including the Parkinson's Disease Society.

Dr Pip Logan, Senior Occupational Therapist at NUH, said; "A lot of older people do not want to come into hospital but when something happens such as a fall, they are not provided with rehabilitation quickly enough and they fall again and are admitted to hospital once more. This then disrupts their care and support networks and when they return home they are often in a more vulnerable position.

"The direction of healthcare across the world is to manage more and more problems at home instead of in hospital. The three groups of patients we are studying can in some instances be very fragile and we need to ensure joined-up services across health and social care. This will ensure older people have access to the best care possible and that their carers and relatives are provided with the right advice and support so that older people are able to live as long and as active a life as possible."

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was named as a top-ranking teaching Trust in the UK in the 2008 'Good Hospital Guide' by health information specialist Dr Foster. The guide says that among the reasons for the Trust's success are that patients recover better than the national average after operations to replace previous hip and knee replacements and that the dedicated isolation facilities available at the Trust provide a good environment for patients with infectious diseases.

For the second year running, the Trust has also been highlighted as having one of the lowest 'standardised mortality rates' in the country. This means that patients in our hospitals are more likely to survive serious illness than in many other hospitals in the UK.
Click here to read the full guide.

NUH is one of the largest Trusts in the UK, with an annual budget of more than £550 million. It was formed on 1 April 2006, when two top-rated trusts - Queen's Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital - merged in order to develop a range of high-quality, sustainable patient services across the two campuses.

As a major teaching Trust, NUH enjoys close links with the city's universities and attracts and develops the highest calibre of staff. It continues to be the hospital of choice for patients, encourage investment and remain at the forefront of research.

It has one of the busiest emergency departments in the UK and has a total of 1,664 hospital beds across both campuses.

http://www.nuh.nhs.uk