Speech Therapy Initiative Uses Video Conferencing Techniques

19th February 2011

SPEECH THERAPY TELEHEALTH INITIATIVE
IMPROVES ACCESS FOR PATIENTS IN FAR NORTH

The Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) team in North Highland has been working with their counterparts in Sweden to find new ways to reach patients in remote and rural areas of Caithness and Sutherland.

Video-conferencing (VC) equipment is now being used to deliver services to patients in some areas of the two counties.

This saves the patient or the specialist having to travel as far, which reduces the inconvenience and cost for the patient and means the specialist can see more patients in the same period of time.

Beatrice Wood, who is Lead Speech and Language Therapist for North Highland Community Health Partnership (CHP), said: "We are committed to providing quality services within the community and close to home. However, this poses significant challenges in sparsely populated areas.

"These have included difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, reducing caseloads resulting in an increasingly high ratio of travel time to clinical time and difficulty in providing brief episodes of intensive therapy and in accessing specialist services.

"In a bid to address some of these challenges, we were keen to investigate how technology might support service delivery and, through the EU-funded Northern Periphery Programme, we were able to learn from the usEndse of VC to deliver SLT services to patients living in remote areas of the north of Sweden."

Mrs Wood explained that the SLT department in Umeå, Sweden, had been using VC to deliver SLT services since May 2005.

She said: "During this time, they have developed considerable skills, experience and resources to support the provision of effective, accessible SLT services.

"Participating in the project has allowed us to work alongside our Swedish colleagues since February 2008 to benefit from their experience and develop our expertise in using VC so that patients in the north of Scotland can benefit from their recognised best practice."

She explained that there was considerable evidence that consultations and therapy over VC were as effective as face to face and patient satisfaction rates were consistently high.

However, some techniques had to be adapted to ensure that a virtual therapy session was as effective as face to face therapy.

"We have also come to realise that, whilst seeking to address service delivery challenges in more remote and sparsely populated areas, there are significant benefits for those living elsewhere.

"Having VC as an option in delivering therapy can improve timely and equitable access to services and make more efficient use of the health workforce wherever they are based," said Ms Wood.

However, she stressed that VC would not replace face to face assessment and therapy, but was a viable, effective and efficient tool, which should be used to enhance the services provided.

Mrs Wood said: "We have recently been given funding to upgrade the equipment we use in Golspie and Wick and to promote the use of telehealth by other professions.

"We now hope to be able to use an existing VC unit on a roving basis, for example in local health centres, to provide a brief episode of intensive therapy for patients receiving SLT."

She added that the IT infrastructure within Highland, particularly in more remote areas, had geographically restricted what they had been able to achieve to date. However, they have been developing their knowledge, skills, confidence and competence in using VC with patients so they will be able to roll it out to a wider area as and when the infrastructure improves.

Further Information

February 21 to 25 is national Scottish Allied Health Professions (AHPs) Awareness Week and AHPs across Highland are taking part in an Open Showcase Event at the Centre for Health Science (next to Raigmore Hospital) in Inverness. It is being held on February 25 from 10am to 12 noon and 2pm to 4pm and is open to anyone who is interested in learning more about the services AHPs provide.

Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic and direct patient care and support services. They include physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and dieticians.

The Northern Periphery Programme is aimed at "enhancing provision and accessibility of health services in the sparsely populated regions of the Northern Periphery by developing and implementing innovative eHealth solutions and promoting transfer of the best practices across the Northern Periphery". In Scotland, it involved the Centre for Rural Health in Aberdeen University, NHS Highland and the private sector.