Abstract

Background: Face to face pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a well evidenced, effective intervention for patients living with COPD. The COVID pandemic resulted in these programmes being suspended nationally. In Tower Hamlets, virtual rehabilitation had not been provided previously, so a new programme was established. As well as collecting objective outcome measures, more detailed patient feedback was needed to evaluate the new service
Aim: To collect patient feedback which would inform changes to future provision of a virtual PR Service in Tower Hamlets.
Method: All patients who attended the first 2 Virtual PR cohorts were asked for consent to being contacted. In November 2020, the patient experience team contacted the 9 consenting patients (completers and non completers) to carry out in depth discovery interviews by telephone . The Service purposely involved the patient experience team to exclude bias and because of their skills at eliciting patient feedback.
Results: Patients reported intermittent technical difficulties initially with the Attend Anywhere platform which caused frustration. Use of mobile phones (when larger devices weren't available) detracted from their experience. Patients with greater physical disability were less likely to complete and felt less safe. Another common theme was the difficulty of different clinicians running the sessions. Feedback was otherwise positive, especially for one patient who was self employed. Patients felt more confident in managing their lung condition and the majority would recommend virtual PR to others. Those who had previous experience of face to face PR rated virtual PR as an inferior option.
Conclusion: Virtual PR will continue to have a valuable role for some patients even when face to face is reinstated. Technical issues / access remain an issue. Face to face remains the preferred option for most.