This study concerns the first phase of a doctoral research study examining what helps patients make use of genetic services and possible reasons for not using these services. It is funded by the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care - North West Coast and undertaken in partnership with Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Research evidence has shown that factors like ethnicity, gender and level of education can affect whether or not people attend genetic services. This study will also examine if factors such as availability of transport or living in the countryside affect whether people attend.
We would like to look at data from any new patients referred to the genetics service during the period 01 April 2013 to 31 March 2016.
Permission to access this data has been approved by an NHS Ethics Committee. Only fully anonymised information will be transferred to the University secure server for further analysis.
Geographical Information Mapping methodology, which creates visual maps of the North West Coast area, will be used to explore if there are any relationships between, for example, availability of transport links and the pattern of referrals observed. These relationships will be discussed with service providers in Phase 2 of the PhD study.
If you would like more information or to opt out of having the referral information the hospital holds being anonymised and included in the study, please contact the Research and Development Department on 0151 702 4346 or research@lwh.nhs.uk