Exploring the role of the in-hours GP home visits – a scoping review and qualitative interview study

PI Title: Dr Lucy Frost

Lead member: Oxford

"The problem
We know that fewer people are having home visits by their GPs, and that this is partly because there aren’t enough GPs for the work they have to do. However, we don’t know how GPs see their role in home visits or how they make decisions about them. It is important to understand this so that people who can’t get to the GP practice are able to get the care they need.

Our aims
We want to understand how GPs see their role in doing home visits. We are interested in how they make decisions about them and what they see works well and doesn’t work as well. This will help us to understand some of the reasons that different GPs and different GP practices do different things and what works well.

Our plans
First, we will look at what has already been written about the role of GPs in home visits. Next, we will interview 30 GPs from around the country. We want to speak to GPs who work in different types of areas and have different perspectives. We will then run two workshops to discuss what we have found with patients, people who work in primary care and other researchers. Together in these workshops, we will work out what other research is needed to be able to help GP practices and policy makers make plans to support patients who need home visits.

Patient and public involvement
We have already started speaking to five patients and carers who have experience of home visits. We wanted to make sure this was something that felt important to them and that we were including the right focus. They have agreed to stay involved throughout the study. They will be able to help decide what questions to include in the interviews, and to understand what we are seeing in the responses. They will also be able to help develop the plans for the workshops and other ways to communicate our findings.

Communication of findings
We will bring our findings to two workshops to discuss further – one for other researchers, and the other for the public and those working in healthcare. From this, we will create reports summarising the outcomes for those who are interested or attended. We will give feedback to those that have been involved as a GP or as a patient and public involvement group member. We will also present our findings at conferences and write a paper for a scientific journal."

Award Amount: £38,326