Table 1

Summary of activities observed during non-participant observations (reproduced with permission from Simister et al 2020)16

Activities observed	Total (of eight sites)
Patient arrival at the emergency department	7/8
Discussion of individual patient’s care at the ward round	6/8
Multidisciplinary team meetings	7/8
16:00 catch-up meeting on the ward	3/4*
Nurse handovers when staff from one shift leaves and another arrives	8/8
Bed meetings to discuss potential patients to be discharged	6/8
Patients being discharged including paperwork and waiting for transport or family members to arrive	4/8
Times observed	Total
In hours observations	25
Night observations	8
Weekend observations	8
Total observation periods conducted	41