Publications by authors named "Gemma Stringer"
Background: The use of locum doctors in the National Health Service is widely believed to have increased, and there have been widespread and sustained concerns among policy-makers, healthcare providers, professional associations and professional regulators about the quality/safety, cost and effective use of locum doctors.
Objectives: To provide evidence on the extent, quality and safety of medical locum practice and the implications of medical locum working for health service organisation and delivery in primary and secondary care in the English National Health Service, to support policy and practice.
Design: Four interlinked work packages involving surveys of National Health Service trusts and of general practices in England; semistructured interviews and focus groups across 11 healthcare organisations in England; analysis of existing routine data sets on the medical workforce in primary care and in National Health Service trusts in England from National Health Service Digital and National Health Service Improvement; and analysis of data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink in primary care and of electronic patient record data from two National Health Service hospitals in secondary care.
Introduction: There have been some concerns about the impact of temporary doctors, otherwise known as locums, on patient safety and the quality of care. Despite these concerns, research has paid little attention to the implications of locum working on patient experience.
Methods: A qualitative semi-structured interview study was conducted with 130 participants including locums, people working with locums and patients with experience of being seen or treated by locums.
Background: The use of temporary doctors, known as locums, has been common practice for managing staffing shortages and maintaining service delivery internationally. However, there has been little empirical research on the implications of locum working for quality and safety. This study aimed to investigate the implications of locum working for quality and safety.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Temporary doctors, known as locums, are a key component of the medical workforce in the NHS but evidence on differences in quality and safety between locum and permanent doctors is limited. We aimed to examine differences in the clinical practice, and prescribing safety for locum and permanent doctors working in primary care in England.
Methods: We accessed electronic health care records (EHRs) for 3.
Background: Locum working in healthcare organisations has benefits for individual doctors and organisations but there are concerns about the impact of locum working on continuity of care, patient safety, team function and cost. We conducted a national survey of NHS Trusts in England to explore locum work, and better understand why and where locum doctors were needed; how locum doctors were engaged, supported, perceived and managed; and any changes being made in the way locums are used.
Methods: An online survey was sent to 191 NHS Trusts and 98 were returned (51%) including 66 (67%) acute hospitals, 26 (27%) mental health and six (6%) community health providers.
Background: Locum doctors give practices flexibility to deliver patient services but there are concerns about the impact of locum working on continuity of care, patient safety, team function, and cost.
Aim: To explore locum working in English general practices, and understand why and where locum doctors were needed and how they were engaged, supported, perceived, and managed.
Design And Setting: An online survey was sent to 3745 practices.
Objectives: Temporary doctors, known as locum doctors, play an important role in the delivery of care in the National Health Service (NHS); however, little is known about the extent of locum use in NHS trusts. This study aimed to quantify and describe locum use for all NHS trusts in England in 2019-2021.
Setting: Descriptive analyses of data on locum shifts from all NHS trusts in England in 2019-2021.
Objectives: Computer-use behaviours can provide useful information about an individual's cognitive and functional abilities. However, little research has evaluated unaided and non-directed home computer-use. In this proof of principle study, we explored whether computer-use behaviours recorded during routine home computer-use i) could discriminate between individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI); ii) were associated with cognitive and functional scores; and iii) changed over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Numbers of GP locums in the NHS have grown in recent years, yet evidence on the scale and scope of the locum workforce in general practice is sparse.
Aim: To identify characteristics, geographical patterns, and drivers of GP locum use.
Design And Setting: Observational study of routine data from general practices in England.
Introduction: To understand the potential influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment in dementia, we aimed to investigate possible bias caused by age, gender, education, and cultural differences.
Methods: A total of 3571 individuals (67.1 ± 9.
Objective: Commonly used measures of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) do not capture activities for a technologically advancing society. This study aimed to adapt the proxy/informant-based Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire (A-IADL-Q) for use in the UK and develop a self-report version.
Design: An iterative mixed method cross-cultural adaptation of the A-IADL-Q and the development of a self-report version involving a three-step design: (1) interviews and focus groups with lay and professional stakeholders to assess face and content validity; (2) a questionnaire to measure item relevance to older adults in the U.
Article Synopsis
- Computer use among older adults is increasing, and examining how they use computers can help detect changes in cognitive functions over time.
- To identify which specific computer-use behaviours indicate declines in cognitive abilities, a group of six experts from clinical and cognitive neuroscience conducted workshops and surveys.
- They created a list of 21 computer-use behaviours that are strong indicators of cognitive decline in areas like Memory, Executive function, Language, and Perception and Action, allowing for targeted research in this field.