This is absolutely my experience as well. People accessing video consultations resoundingly positive whereas clinicians less positive and viewing it as a stop gap until things return to normal.

I think the concept of things being ‘good enough’ is hard for clinicians who always want to achieve best practice. This has caused some of the clinicians I work with (AHPs) to hold back on trying video consultations and for others it may make them revert to face to face practice in the future, even if patients are satisfied with remote appointments. We are trying to collect data to demonstrate that virtual consultations improve quality, not a poorer option. I think the QI principles can really support this. The challenge is keeping up with the pace of change at the moment!

This is a really important challenge! Anita’s approach to gather the evidence to support this as a long term change, and use it as an opportunity to keep improving is vital. Getting the right monitoring and evaluation processes in place in a timely way can sometimes be harder than we assume…can people share feedback surveys, and approaches to monitoring and evaluation that have worked well?

Stick with it was our early experience in Highland and Scotland but ultimately ‘people power’ was a big persuader. The arguments about ‘good enough’ need be treated with extreme caution it implies it is second best but in the vast majority of cases that is certainly not the case and as we are seeing right now distinct advantages. The move to video consultations is one of the central tenet of NHS Scotland’s Realistic Medicine something roundly endorsed by clinicians. Maimie

Hi Jude,
We’re doing patient feedback as a small research piece, and planning on doing a staff piece as well – although the staff are much better at spontaneously offering feedback so we’ve got more of a gauge as to where we are with staff! It’s still very much a work in progress but happy to share when it’s tangible enough to do so.
Iona

Our system Near Me ha a pop up survey at the end of every consultation. But Scotland is already under evaluation – we can share our findings. Clare Morrison co-national near me clinical lead will have more surveys as she has been working on this since 2017. I also led a public consultation and got a lot of feed-back as part of major service change including move to video consultations. email me if you want more info.

Would really like to see it. Nicola.elliswebb@nhs.net

Happy to email it to you.

This sounds like a great idea, we’re trying to work out the best platform to host evaluations on. Would you be able to share with me too? Many thanks, Meggan.jarvis@nhs.net