Delivering a Parkinson’s Disease outpatient clinic service during a pandemic

Aim

To establish an effective method of patient clinic review that is well received by patients’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Headlines

• The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in outpatient clinic cancellations so the team set up a telephone clinic service for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients
• It was generally well received and almost all patients felt it was a useful method of review
• Communication difficulties was the biggest drawback for some

Key findings

Of 60 patients who completed a feedback questionnaire after having their review on the telephone:

• 95% said they found the telephone consultation useful
• half said they would prefer telephone consultations to, at least in part, remain part of their follow up
• 24 said the main positive was not having to travel to clinic
• half said the telephone consultation was not as useful as an outpatient clinic review
• 15 said the main negative was having communication issues over the phone