SURGE Same day and urgent care workforce research partnership
Same day and Urgent care (SURGE) is provided by a diverse range of healthcare staff. SURGE is time-critical, high pressured and unpredictable, making the workforce extremely vulnerable to poor mental and physical health. This impacts on wellbeing, sickness levels, job satisfaction and ultimately performance. At a systems level, SURGE recruitment and retention are among the worse in the NHS, resulting in challenges to the delivery of timely, safe, high quality and efficient care for patients.
The aims and objectives of SURGE will be to provide impactful, rapidly transferable evidence that will support employers to create a more robust and thriving SURGE workforce. Our highly experienced clinical and academic partnership, supported by a team of research fellows, will undertake diverse and inclusive stakeholder consultation, based on principles of equity centred engagement. We will identify the key workforce challenges within the SURGE domains of: Ambulance Services, Primary Care, Emergency Departments and Urgent Treatment Centres, Urgent Community Response Services.
What is the problem?
It is important that there are sufficient suitably trained staff working in health services to ensure that patients and carers receive safe, respectful and high-quality care. It is well known that there are currently large staff shortages in the NHS. This is especially true for same day and urgent care. The services people use in urgent situations are general practice, ambulance services, urgent treatment centres and Emergency Departments. Working in these services is known to be very stressful for doctors, nurses, paramedics and other healthcare staff, resulting in high rates of sickness and people leaving. It is also difficult to find new staff. At the same time, patients are using these services more often, particularly in areas where there are higher levels of deprivation; these are also the areas where staff shortages are worst. We do not know the best way to plan and provide these services so that they a) meet the needs of patients and carers and b) promote an environment that is attractive to staff.
Some of the solutions to address workforce shortages might include: More use of technology; using different types of staff to help patients with certain minor but urgent problems; or providing more health and well-being support for staff.
Research Question
How can changes to policy and practice across the same day and urgent care system result in an effective, thriving, diverse and sustainable workforce?
What is the aim of the research?
We will investigate questions about how best to provide and staff these services using new and different ways of working.
How will we achieve this aim?
Our partnership will fully investigate the complex issues associated with staff shortages in same day urgent care. We will rapidly produce meaningful findings to inform policy and practice to improve staff recruitment and retention in this critical area. This will benefit the existing NHS workforce and enhance education and training for new and developing staff.
We will investigate several research questions that are grouped into work packages of research. In the first eighteen months we will undertake four parallel work packages to:
1. Consult widely with patients, health care staff and NHS managers on the priority questions for investigation
2. Map services, and data sources, that are currently being provided nationally
3. Find and bring together the evidence already available on these issues
4. Develop a detailed plan for onward research.
5. Project work to address the priority areas
Examples of the questions we may cover include: how we can keep ambulance staff working for the NHS; which professionals should patients see first in their GP practice; and are there better ways to assess people who need urgent care at home? We will publicise our findings throughout to inform decision-making by senior NHS staff, clinicians, managers and the public.
We are supported by a patient and professional advisory group (PPAG). We have worked hard to create a diverse and inclusive PPAG because many of the issues affecting staff are experienced differently by individuals with what are known as ‘protected characteristics’: Age, disability, gender reassignment, relationship status, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. The PPAG have helped us develop this proposal and will work with us to inform, direct and explain our research.
Funding
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health & Social Care Delivery Research (HS&DR).
Who is leading the research?
Professor Sarah Voss, Professor of Emergency Care and Professor Nicola Walsh, Professor of Knowledge Mobilisation and Musculoskeletal Health. Centre for Health and Clinical Research, University of the West of England.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.