Intervention
The date of the visit to the trust by the GIRFT team where key recommendations were presented was taken as the key intervention point. Visits were spread over a 20 month period; the first visit was on 10th August 2016 and the final visit on 19th April 2018.
The time from the GIRFT visit to the hospital admission date for each patient was calculated in days. Admissions during the baseline period (before the GIRFT visit) had time recorded as a negative number and on the day of the visit recorded as time zero. Time was then divided into periods of 30 days with the day of the visit and the next 29 days coded as period 0 and the next 30 days as period one etc. Similarly, the 30 days prior to the visit were coded as period minus one and the previous 30 days as period minus two etc.