Improving Transition in Health Services

Our Transition Information Network at CDC have been working with Newcastle University and the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on a research project looking at the relationship between health services and transition.

The Transition Research Programme began in order to address the question of how health services can contribute most effectively to facilitating successful transition of young people with complex health needs from childhood to adulthood.

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What are the programme’s aims?

The overall aim of the five-year programme is to provide NHS commissioners and trusts with evidence about what might help young people with long-term health problems as they transfer from child to adult services. This will help them to allocate resources and structure services accordingly. Within this larger aim, the programme has three objectives. These are to:

1. To work with young people with complex health needs to determine what successful transition means to them and what is important in their transitional care
2. To identify the features of transitional care that are effective and efficient
3. To determine how transitional care should be organised, provided and commissioned

The Transition Information Network, one of CDC's special interest groups, sits on the Programme Management Board and our role is to support the dissemination of the research findings to young people. We co-produced a young people’s event in October 2015 which has led to the development of a range of workshop materials that support the research findings being disseminated to other children and young people.

In particular we:

• Provide expert overview on policy and practice beyond health agencies
• Bring together groups of young people to participate in the programme
• Co ordinate input to the programme from a range of voluntary agencies
• Support communication and dissemination of work throughout and at the end of the programme.

The programme is now in its fifth year and we look forward to sharing the findings and considering how they can improve outcomes for young people in transition.

You can find out more about the programme here: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/transition/