Abstract
Introduction
The timely administration of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) medications is essential for better motor symptom control, leading to improved patient outcomes. The NICE Guidelines and Parkinson’s UK recommend all hospital in-patients with PD should get their PD medications on time – within 30 minutes of their prescribed administration time. This audit aimed to assess the adherence of timely administration of PD medications amongst in-patients at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, and to compare this pre- and post-interventions.
Methods
A two-cycle retrospective audit was conducted on November 2023 (pre-intervention) and July 2024 data (post-intervention). Data on all doses of PD medications administered in the trust, and whether they were given on time, was collected via our trust’s data warehouse application. On analysis, the percentage of PD medication doses given on time was calculated according to location. From this, six lower-performing wards were identified, and interventions for them (surveys, education and training) were carried out in April-May 2024.
Results
In November 2023, the trustwide percentage of PD medications given on time was 83.46% (n=2920), increasing to 88.32% (n=4024) in July 2024. Pre-intervention, the percentage of PD medications given on time across in-patient locations within the trust was varied, ranging from 0-100%. Post-intervention, there was more consistency – ranging from 50-100%, this evidenced improved performance achieved trustwide. All wards where interventions took place showed improved results, seeing 7.5-95.4% increases from their previous rates. New lower-performing wards which would benefit from interventions in future cycles of this audit were also identified.
Conclusion
Over the two cycles, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust showed improvement in the percentage of in-patients receiving their PD medications on time. The post-intervention data also illustrates the positive impact of our interventions. Our work has been recognised as a best practice case study by Parkinson’s UK.