Who knows best? Older people’s and practitioner contributions to understanding and preventing avoidable hospital admissions

Jon Glasby, Rosemary Littlechild, Nick Le Mesurier and Rachel Thwaites

Health Economics, Policy and Law, 2020, vol. 15, issue 2, 225-246

Abstract: Whenever there are well-publicised pressures on acute care, there is a tendency for policy makers and the media to imply that a significant number of older people may be taking up hospital beds when they do not really need the services provided there. However, evidence to back up such claims is often lacking, and existing research tends to fail to engage meaningfully with older people themselves. In contrast, this research explores the emergency hospital admissions of older people in three English case study sites, drawing on the lived experience of older people and the practice wisdom of front-line staff to explore the appropriateness of each admission and scope for alternatives to hospital. Contrary to popular opinion, the study did not find evidence of large numbers of older people being admitted to hospital inappropriately. Indeed, some of the older people concerned delayed seeking help and only ended up at hospital as a very last resort, possibly due to concerns about being seen as a burden on scarce public resources. While older people and front-line staff identified a number of suggestions to improve services in future, there seemed few clear cut, easy answers to the longstanding dilemma of how best to reduce emergency admissions. Seeking to understand and potentially reduce emergency hospital admissions is complex, and it is important to consider the experiences and expertise of older people and front-line staff.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:15:y:2020:i:2:p:225-246_6

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Health Economics, Policy and Law from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().