A survey on the use of remote consultation for people with intellectual disability: The experience of community intellectual disability teams

ABSTRACT

Background

Since COVID-19, remote consultation (by telephone and video) has become widespread. This study investigated the experience of using remote consultation in Specialist Intellectual Disability Community services.

Method

A total of 126 health staff working across eight Specialist Intellectual Disability Community teams in the NHS Health Board of Greater Glasgow and Clyde were asked to complete a short Likert-scale survey about remote consultation.

Results

There were 61 (48%) respondents from a range of disciplines. Overall, respondents were positive about remote consultation but found it was often inadequate to complete a full patient assessment. Moving forwards, respondents wanted around 60% of all consultations to remain face-to-face. It was significantly more difficult to engage and communicate with patients with more severe levels of disability.

Conclusions

Remote consultation has been successful, but there is still a need for face-to-face assessment in intellectual disability services, particularly when working with people with more severe levels of disability.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual disability
• remote consultation
• telemedicine
• video consultation
• teleconsultation
• learning disability

Acknowledgements

The author wants to thank Audrey Marshall for her support with this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).