Publications by authors named "Richard Byng"

Background: The introduction of remote and digital forms of working in UK general practice has driven the development of new routines and working styles.

Aim: To explore and theorise how new forms of work have affected general practice staff.

Design And Setting: Multi-site, qualitative case study in UK general practice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: In this viewpoint we highlight a gap in the literature relating to the involvement of professional stakeholders in healthcare evaluation research.

Method: Using the Dementia-PersonAlised Care Team (D-PACT) project as an example, we illustrate how professional stakeholder work can serve various functions, from understanding commissioning and policy context to contributing to detail of intervention components.

Outcome: We argue that identifying these project-specific functions can help researchers to effectively plan when, how and for whom they will engage in professional stakeholder work across the course of an evaluation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: This paper evaluates the introduction of ten Community Health and Well-being Workers (CHWW) in four pilot sites across Cornwall. The period evaluated was from the initial start in June 2022 until June 2023, covering the project setup and implementation across a range of Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and Voluntary sector partners (VSCO).

Methods: All ten CHWWs and their managers at each site were interviewed (n = 16) to understand the barriers and enablers to implementation and wider learning that could be captured around the project setup.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Most feedback received by health services is positive. Our systematic scoping review mapped all available empirical evidence for how positive patient feedback creates healthcare change. Most included papers did not provide specific details on positive feedback characteristics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

'Reflexivity', as used by Margaret Archer, means creative self-mastery that enables individuals to evaluate their social situation and act purposively within it. People with complex health and social needs may be less able to reflect on their predicament and act to address it. Reflexivity is imperative in complex and changing social situations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Contemporary general practice includes many kinds of remote encounter. The rise in telephone, video and online modalities for triage and clinical care requires clinicians and support staff to be trained, both individually and as teams, but evidence-based competencies have not previously been produced for general practice.

Aim: To identify training needs, core competencies, and learning methods for staff providing remote encounters.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Triage and clinical consultations increasingly occur remotely. We aimed to learn why safety incidents occur in remote encounters and how to prevent them.

Setting And Sample: UK primary care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Guidance and policy on personalised (or person-centred) care of older people living in care homes advocates that all residents must have their preferences considered, and that all care provided must be reasonably adjusted to meet the person's specific needs. Despite this, research that considers what matters to residents in terms of the care they receive is limited.

Objectives: Our review aims to explore care home residents' lived experiences of personalised care and understand what really matters to them.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Continuity is a long-established and fiercely-defended value in primary care. Traditional continuity, based on a one-to-one doctor-patient relationship, has declined in recent years. Contemporary general practice is organisationally and technically complex, with multiple staff roles and technologies supporting patient access (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Practitioner understanding of patients' preferences, wishes and needs is essential for personalised health care i.e., focusing on 'what matters' to people based on their individual life situation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Different dementia support roles exist but evidence is lacking on which aspects are best, for whom, and in what circumstances, and on their associated costs and benefits. Phase 1 of the Dementia PersonAlised Care Team programme (D-PACT) developed a post-diagnostic primary care-based intervention for people with dementia and their carers and assessed the feasibility of a trial.

Aim: Phase 2 of the programme aims to 1) refine the programme theory on how, when, and for whom the intervention works; and 2) evaluate its value and impact.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Individuals living with severe mental illness can have significant emotional, physical and social challenges. Collaborative care combines clinical and organisational components.

Aims: We tested whether a primary care-based collaborative care model (PARTNERS) would improve quality of life for people with diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or other psychoses, compared with usual care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Accessing and receiving care remotely (by telephone, video or online) became the default option during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but in-person care has unique benefits in some circumstances. We are studying UK general practices as they try to balance remote and in-person care, with recurrent waves of COVID-19 and various post-pandemic backlogs.

Methods: Mixed-methods (mostly qualitative) case study across 11 general practices.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Depression is highly recurrent, even following successful pharmacological and/or psychological intervention. We aimed to develop clinical prediction models to inform adults with recurrent depression choosing between antidepressant medication (ADM) maintenance or switching to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Using data from the PREVENT trial (=424), we constructed prognostic models using elastic net regression that combined demographic, clinical and psychological factors to predict relapse at 24 months under ADM or MBCT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There are long-standing concerns that people experiencing homelessness may not recover well if left unsupported after a hospital stay. This study reports on a study investigating the cost-effectiveness of three different 'in patient care coordination and discharge planning' configurations for adults experiencing homelessness who are discharged from hospitals in England. The first configuration provided a clinical and housing in-reach service during acute care and discharge coordination but with no 'step-down' care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Approximately 15 million people in the UK live with obesity, around 5 million of whom have severe obesity (body mass index (BMI) ≥35kg/m). Having severe obesity markedly compromises health, well-being and quality of life, and substantially reduces life expectancy. These adverse outcomes are prevented or ameliorated by weight loss, for which sustained behavioural change is the cornerstone of treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Tackling problematic polypharmacy requires tailoring the use of medicines to individual circumstances and may involve the process of deprescribing. Deprescribing can cause anxiety and concern for clinicians and patients. Tailoring medication decisions often entails beyond protocol decision-making, a complex process involving emotional and cognitive work for healthcare professionals and patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Many male prisoners have significant mental health problems, including anxiety and depression. High proportions struggle with homelessness and substance misuse.

Aims: This study aims to evaluate whether the Engager intervention improves mental health outcomes following release.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Following a pandemic-driven shift to remote service provision, UK general practices offer telephone, video or online consultation options alongside face-to-face. This study explores practices' varied experiences over time as they seek to establish remote forms of accessing and delivering care.

Methods: This protocol is for a mixed-methods multi-site case study with co-design and national stakeholder engagement.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Tackling problematic polypharmacy requires tailoring the use of medicines to individual needs and circumstances. This may involve stopping medicines (deprescribing) but patients and clinicians report uncertainty on how best to do this. The TAILOR medication synthesis sought to help understand how best to support deprescribing in older people living with multimorbidity and polypharmacy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: 'Engager' is an innovative 'through-the-gate' complex care intervention for male prison-leavers with common mental health problems. In parallel to the randomised-controlled trial of Engager (Trial registration number: ISRCTN11707331), a set of process evaluation analyses were undertaken. This paper reports on the depth multiple case study analysis part of the process evaluation, exploring how a sub-sample of prison-leavers engaged and responded to the intervention offer of one-to-one support during their re-integration into the community.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are the "gold standard" for measuring the effectiveness of an intervention. However, they have their limitations and are especially complex in prison settings. Several systematic reviews have highlighted some of the issues, including, institutional constraints e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF