Best Practice for Healthcare Transition: Development and Use of the Benchmarks for Transition

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the ‘Benchmarks for Transition from Child to Adult Health Services’. Benchmarks are a healthcare quality performance measurement ‘tool’. They provide clinical teams with standards that services can measure themselves against to see how they are performing, identify gaps in their service and provide a platform to share successful practice initiatives. The Benchmarks for Transition described in this chapter were developed in collaboration with young people, parents and health professionals, using a grant from the Burdett Trust for Nursing. A successful transition process involves the provision of care that is uninterrupted, coordinated and developmentally appropriate over a period of time before, during and after a young person transfers to adult services. Eight factors and their associated indicators of best practice, which impact upon young people’s and parents/carers’ experiences of timely and effective transition, were developed and refined through an iterative process. This chapter describes the development of the Benchmarks for Transition and we offer suggestions on how they can be used in practice. To offer more practical help we have included an example of their use in one hospital Trust in the UK. We recommend that clinical teams use the benchmarks, to inform system level strategies, as well as evaluate programmes. We are confident in suggesting that the 12 steps in the benchmark wheel will help clinical teams to build and individualize a transition programme, to score and compare, share best practice and develop associated action plans.