Thorax | 2021
S113\u2005Telephone consultation – the patient perspective
Abstract
Background: Our regional assisted ventilation service has a cohort of almost 1000 patients receiving Long Term Ventilation (LTV) in the community The clinical review of these patients has historically been delivered in the outpatient setting, either at the base hospital or at outreach clinics elsewhere in the region During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was recognised that face-to-face contact with this shielded group of patients was impractical, therefore the routine outpatient review was replaced with a telephone consultation Patients who required urgent assessment or review were prioritised, and were seen face-to-face either in the outpatient department or in the community, observing strict infection prevention and control measures in either setting Objective To gain an understanding of the perspective of LTV patients about their clinical review being provided by telephone Method: We sent a survey to 930 patients asking: • Whether they had received a telephone consultation during the last few months • If so, to score how helpful the telephone consultation was • Whether they would consider changing some of their future consultations to telephone/video • To score what their preferred method of consultation would be in the future Results: We received feedback from 355 respondents who had participated in a telephone consultation Most patients (98%) rated their telephone consultation as helpful 66% would consider changing their future consultation to telephone review When asked about future management, one third would prefer face-to-face consultation, one third would prefer telephone review and one third would prefer a mixture of both Discussion Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, due to reduced face-to-face clinical contact, LTV patients have demonstrated a significant level of independence in self-managing their health care This is an opportunity to embrace the flexibility in the way health care delivery has evolved during this time Conclusion: The patient perspective on how their health care is delivered is critically important LTV services will continue to need to apply clinical judgement when organising their patient review process, but this feedback demonstrates that most patients would be happy for telephone consultations to replace some, if not all, of the face-to-face review they have previously had