Why is this important?

Delirium is an acute confusional state caused by a physical illness, and is a common reason for admission to hospital.  The prevalence of delirium in people on medical wards in hospital is about 20% to 30%, and 10% to 50% of people having surgery develop delirium. In long-term care the prevalence is under 20%.  The prevalence in community settings can be as low as 2% but rises to 14% for older patients and can be as high as 60% for care home residents. 

 

What are we trying to do?

At request of community colleagues a community delirium toolkit was developed.  This was developed in line with best medical practice and national guidance and using a multi-disciplinary approach ensuring representation from a number of stakeholders including people with dementia (at particular risk of delirium) and their carers.  We wish to capture information on experience of implementation to inform any future practice and potential revision and improvement of the toolkit.  Specifically, we wish to establish (1) what factors  have enabled teams to embed the toolkit, (2) to understand staff experience of using the toolkit and the barriers and facilitators of implementation and (3), to under how the toolkit affects knowledge of delirium and patient outcomes. 

 

How are we doing it?

An interview guide has been developed based on our evaluation aims to inform our semi-structured interviews, with some personalised prompts for each site to ensure we take into consideration local context. 

The sample is a purposive sample; the invited participants for this qualitative evaluation will be nurses or approved medical practitioner (AMPs) who had adopted the delirium toolkit at various stages.

 

Who are we working with?

• Stockport Victoria Proactive PCN.
• Bolton Admission Avoidance Team.
• Salford Urgent Care Team.
• Trafford Community Enhanced Care Service.

 

More information

 

 

 

Programme Manager
Alison Littlewood
alison.j.littlewood@manchester.ac.uk