Evaluation of an acute trust Domestic Abuse Coordinator role: Impact findings and a budget impact model.

Abstract

Domestic Abuse Coordinators (DACs) work strategically across National Health Service (NHS) hospital and other off-site clinical settings to support clinical staff in domestic abuse enquiry and response, and to co-lead the development and implementation of effective clinical policies and procedures for the management of domestic abuse and the support of survivors. Drawing on data from a large NHS acute trust in central London, we analyse the impact of the DAC role in increasing the rate of referrals of high-risk domestic abuse cases, and generate plausible estimates of the budget impact of the DAC role in respect of costs accrued to NHS trusts. Using eight quarters of clinical data and an interrupted time series design, we find that evidence that implementation of a DAC role is linked with an increase in the rate of high-risk referrals of between 18% and 21% per quarter, indicating improved responses to victim-survivors at highest risk of imminent harm. Under a range of reasonable assumptions, initiation of the DAC role is shown to be cost-saving to an employing acute trust. Future work should seek to quantify the direct impacts to survivor health and wellbeing of the implementation of the DAC role.