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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Caring for older people in acute settings
— lessons learned from an action research study in accident and emergency | | Author(s) | Julienne Meyer, Jackie Bridges, Karen Spilsbury |
| Journal title | NT Research, vol 4, no 5, 1999 |
| Pages | pp 327-339 |
| Keywords | Accident & emergency depts ; Medical care ; Management [care] ; Research ; Methodology. |
| Annotation | The health and social care of older people - particularly in acute settings - has never been so high on the political agenda. This paper explores the organisation of care for older older people in an accident and emergency (A&E) setting. Although not necessarily applicable to all acute settings, the action research methodology used generated unique exploratory data. This suggested that older patients arrive at hospital with low expectations of care, and that they appear to understand many of the constraints under which staff are working. However, while patients seem able to identify small ways in which care could be improved easily, staff instead appear to blame the wider organisation for poor care and give the impression of being disempowered to care. This is despite findings which suggest nurses could make changes in the priorities they give to different aspects of care. Lessons learned from this action research study suggest that nurses may need to work more closely together to foster much-needed improvements in care of older people. With the National Services Framework for Older People on the horizon, nurses cannot afford to ignore the needs of such a significant group of patients in their care. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000607202 A |
| Classmark | LD6: LK: QA: 3A: 3D * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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