1148 Qualitative analysis of telephone clinics in community paediatric services during COVID-19 pandemic

Background The Covid-19 pandemic has placed healthcare services under significant strain. Royal College of Paediatric & Child Health advised use of virtual consultation where possible. 1 2 Within the published literature there is clear evidence demonstrating the many benefits of telephone consultation including telephone appointments being more convenient, more cost-effective, improved quality of care and decreased non-attendance rates.3 Telephone clinics were implemented in community paediatric services in the southern trust, Northern Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic. Objectives To understand service users and staff satisfaction of community paediatric phone clinics during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods The Quality Improvement team completed literature review on similar types of projects. A questionnaire was designed for service users to determine their satisfaction for phone clinics in community paediatrics. A separate questionnaire for (clinicians and administrative) staff was also developed to understand their experience. Feedback was obtained from randomly selected service users over the period of May to October 2020. The questionnaire was sent to service users by post with self-addressed return envelope after the phone clinic. Staff was asked to complete questionnaires for five separate phone clinics encounters during the same six-month period. Results Summary of results from staff questionnaire: Total of 10 staff members were requested to complete the questionnaires and 7 returned. Regarding setting/environment category of the questionnaire, staff reported 100% access to quiet area with a functioning phone as well as availability to PC with Internet connection, and access to patient chart. Conclusions Telephone clinic can be a useful tool to ensure patients receive timely care via a time efficient method. This project demonstrated overall positive experience from service users. However due to small sample of returned questionnaires from service users would be a limitation of this study therefore further similar studies would be beneficial after covid-19 pandemic.