QNI publishes evaluation of ‘Transition of Care’ programme

Community Nursing Charity The Queen’s Nursing Institute has published an evaluation of its Transition of Care programme that took place during 2016-17.

The aim of the programme was to analyse and improve the experience of young people transitioning from children’s to adult community health services, with a particular emphasis on the contribution of District Nursing, General Practice Nursing, and the role of nurse education.

The Transition of Care programme was funded by The Burdett Trust for Nursing, which has also funded the new evaluation of the work, undertaken by Sharon Aldridge-Bent QN, Director of Nursing Programmes at the QNI.

The evaluation was carried out in the first half of 2020 and despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic, it has drawn from a very wide range of sources including many of those that were involved in the original project work. In addition a new online survey was undertaken, and the results of this are included in the evaluation.

Sharon Aldridge-Bent QN commented, ‘The QNI’s Transition of Care programme is an excellent example of how person-centred and personalised care can make a huge difference to the experience of patients in the community, in this case that of young people who are new to adult services. While the emphasis on self-care is important, the programme showed that the best way to ensure high quality care is by a partnership approach between clinicians and the people they care for. The input of the patient voice representative was therefore extremely important to the original project and to this evaluation.’

Dr Crystal Oldman CBE, the QNI’s Chief Executive commented, ‘The evaluation offered an ideal opportunity to review the progress in the care of young people in the community since the original programme in 2016-17. It confirmed that in order to drive continued progress in this area of work, ongoing investment is needed in staff education and the resources to support them. The Queen’s Nursing Institute developed a range of accessible and engaging online resources for nurses working with young people transitioning to community services during the original programme. We hope to be able to build on this work in the future in support of the National Transition Nurse Network centred in Leeds which was funded for three years by Burdett Trust for Nursing in 2019.’

The summary recommendations of the report are:

1. To continue to listen to young people in order to inform nursing practice. Whilst there is a real sense that the messages around young people transitioning are being heard, there remains more work to be done to raise awareness of the challenges faced.
2. To update the existing QNI materials, to ensure these are current and relevant. There is an opportunity for the learning resource to be updated and disseminated to every university offering nursing programmes in the UK.
3. To consider an independent, wider longitudinal study of the Transition of Care Programme to inform and offer increased validity to the outcomes and impacts of this innovative work.
4. To develop and collect a national standardised data set around transitioning from children’s to adult services, so that there is a stronger case that demonstrates the value of sustaining this work, with the aim of ensuring better outcomes for young people with long-term health conditions.

The original programme resources and new evaluation can all be downloaded from the QNI’s website at: https://www.qni.org.uk/nursing-in-the-community/from-child-to-adult/

More information about The Burdett Trust for Nursing is available on their website: https://www.btfn.org.uk/