Andrew Healey, Alexandra Melaugh, Len Demetriou, Tracey Power, Nick Sevdalis, Megan Pritchard and Lucy Goulding
Many patients referred by their GP for an assessment by secondary mental health services are unlikely to ever meet eligibility thresholds for specialist treatment and support. A…
Abstract
Purpose
Many patients referred by their GP for an assessment by secondary mental health services are unlikely to ever meet eligibility thresholds for specialist treatment and support. A new service was developed to support people in primary care. “the authors evaluate” whether the phased introduction of the Lambeth Living Well Network (LWN) Hub to a population in south London led to: a reduction in the overall volume of patients referred from primary care for a secondary mental health care assessment; and an increase in the proportion of patients referred who met specialist service eligibility criteria, as indicated by the likelihood of being accepted in secondary care.
Design/methodology/approach
The evaluation applied a quasi-experimental interrupted time series design using electronic patient records data for a National Health Service (NHS) provider of secondary mental health services in south London.
Findings
Scale-up of the Hub to the whole of the population of Lambeth led to an average of 98 fewer secondary care assessments per month (95% CI −118 to −78) compared to an average of 203 assessments per month estimated in the absence of the Hub; and an absolute incremental increase in the probability of acceptance for specialist intervention of 0.20 (95% CI; 0.14 to 0.27) above an average probability of acceptance of 0.57 in the absence of the Hub.
Research limitations/implications
Mental health outcomes for people using the service and system wide-service impacts were not evaluated preventing a more holistic evaluation of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the LWN Hub.
Practical implications
Providing general practitioners with access to service infrastructure designed to help people whose needs cannot be managed within specialist mental health services can prevent unnecessary referrals into secondary care assessment teams.
Social implications
Reducing unnecessary referrals through provision of a primary-care linked mental health service will reduce delay in access to professional support that can address specific mental-health related needs that could not be offered within the secondary care services and could prevent the escalation of problems.
Originality/value
The authors use NHS data to facilitate the novel application of a quasi-experimental methodology to deliver new evidence on whether an innovative primary care linked mental health service was effective in delivering on one of its key aims.
Details
Keywords
Jannet C. Bencure, Nitin K. Tripathi, Hiroyuki Miyazaki, Sarawut Ninsawat and Sohee Minsun Kim
The research aims to establish importance scheme of geospatial factors for land valuation activities that may serve as an eye-opener and aid the concerned government agencies in…
Abstract
Purpose
The research aims to establish importance scheme of geospatial factors for land valuation activities that may serve as an eye-opener and aid the concerned government agencies in drafting land valuation policies and guidelines to achieve a sound land governance and administration. It specifically identifies and weighs geospatial valuation factors to establish their importance.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involves discussions and survey questionnaires given to land experts (i.e. appraisers, environmental planners, land economist, geodetic engineers and assessors) who indicated their opinions on influence of geospatial factors on land value. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is then used to weigh the factors in terms of its importance.
Findings
The result was then compared with the multiple regression analysis (MRA) taking into consideration the standardized regression coefficient of the 15 factors. The AHP method found out the major road accessibility and slope direction as the most and least influential factors, respectively, while surprisingly MRA found major road accessibility not significant at p < 0.05 level of significance.
Research limitations/implications
The research generally reflects the sub-urban type of study area; hence, inclusion of other road types such as express ways and subways and performing sensitivity analysis of AHP are suggested in future studies.
Practical implications
The findings of the study will provide information of concerned government agencies in improving valuation activities, as well as to update values regularly based on the geospatial factors.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first effort to rank geospatial factors with analytic hierarchy analytic process that further considered both their negative and positive influences on land value. The approach surmounts the flaw and shortcomings of empirical methods of identifying importance of factors.