Feasibility of a telephone support service for older patients to improve quality of life after discharge from the emergency department.

The intervention is a volunteer-peer telephone service that provides emotional and social support, together with social stimulation and informal guidance about strategies that might help address social isolation and loneliness. Each telephone support session will be approximately 30 minutes, and will be delivered to participants once per week over a three month period (up to 12 telephone support calls). The telephone support sessions will be delivered by hospital volunteers who are trained to help support patients and families during an acute hospital admission or emergency department visit. Each session will be unstructured and participant-directed, however participants will be asked to describe any changes since the previous call, the outcomes of any planned actions, and agree on new social goals. Any medical issues will be directed to the patient’s GP. Telephone call logs will record the dates, times and length of each call, and the number of attempts required to make contact with the participant on each occasion. The content of calls made will be described using a simple template. Participant drop-outs and their reasons for doing so will also be recorded. Random audits of the telephone calls and the call logs will ensure a standard approach is being used and fidelity of the intervention.