An Evaluation of the Implementation of the 10-Steps Transition Pathway to Adult Services at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital

Executive Summary
The 10-Steps Transition Pathway to Adult Services at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital was developed to improve the process of transition for young people with long-term health conditions moving between children’s and adult services.

In February 2017, Edge Hill University in collaboration with the transition team at Alder Hey commenced an external evaluation of the implementation of the 10-Steps Transition Pathway at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital as part of a PhD project. The aim of the evaluation was to investigate how the 10-Steps Transition Pathway was being implemented by healthcare professionals across the trust and to identify areas for improvement.

Between July 2017 and January 2019, twenty-six semi-structured face to face and telephone interviews with healthcare professionals involved in the development and/or implementation of the 10-Steps Transition Pathway at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, were undertaken. A qualitative review of programme documentation complemented this. Data were analysed thematically and resulted in three overarching themes: extraneous factors, organisational factors and individual-service level factors that helped to support and/or hinder implementation of the 10-Steps Transition Pathway.

This report highlights key features of the 10-Steps Transition Pathway that were either successfully adopted by practitioners or overlooked, and factors which facilitated and hindered implementation efforts. It concludes with ten key recommendations for practice.