UK Parkinson's Audit - Transforming Care

The UK Parkinson's Audit is the recognised quality improvement tool for Parkinson's services.

We are delighted to present the results of the 2022 UK Parkinson’s Audit. 

The Audit cycle is changing from every 2 years to every 3 years. The next Audit will take place in 2025

You can read more about the changes here.

Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

The 2022 Audit results

In 2022, 506 services from across the UK took part in the audit, submitting data on the care provided to 9,760 patients. In addition, 6,795 people gave feedback on the quality of their Parkinson's service. The Executive Summary highlights evidence of good practice and areas for improvement and more details can be found in the Summary Report. Data dashboards provide a visual display of the data.

Share the 2022 Audit findings with the Parkinson's community

We have produced an overview and summary of the key findings from the 2022 UK Parkinson's Audit for a non-professional audience. This summary can be shared with people with Parkinson's, families and friends and other members of the Parkinson's community.

2022 areas for improvement

The audit identified the following areas for improvement across participating services. From these findings, the Excellence Network has developed and is facilitating a series of national priority programmes to address these areas.

Visit our dedicated national priority programmes page to find out more.

Parkinson's is a complex and chronic condition. People with Parkinson's should receive the best care in specialist Parkinson's or movement disorder clinics with access to a multidisciplinary team.

Statement 3 of the NICE Parkinson’s Disease quality standard states that adults with Parkinson's are referred to physiotherapy, occupational therapy or speech and language therapy if they have problems with balance, motor function, activities of daily living, communication, swallowing or saliva.

The audit highlighted that over 95% of Elderly Care and Neurology services had access to these therapies, but earlier referral needs to be encouraged.

Non-motor symptoms recording in clinics continued to be poor.

  • Parkinson's related pain was only assessed in 64% of services.

  • Constipation was raised as a concern and/or asked about in only 44% of PREM respondents.

Use of standardised guidance, assessments and outcome measures in occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech and language therapy should be the norm. For example, health professionals should use the following guidelines:

All patients should be able to access the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT). 34.4% of services offered LSVT to all eligible candidates.

Written information about Parkinson's is still not routinely available in over 7% of outpatient clinics. However, providing this may not be enough, as only 59% of patients feel they are given enough information at diagnosis.

All clinics should offer information on:

  • diagnosis

  • new medication

  • Parkinson's UK support and services

  • making a Power of Attorney.

When someone with Parkinson's doesn't get their medication at the time prescribed for them, their symptoms can become significantly worse.

Statement 4 of the NICE Parkinson's Disease Quality Standard states adults with Parkinson's disease who are in hospital take Levodopa within 30 minutes of their individually prescribed administration time. Only 76% of services had a local Parkinson's guideline incorporating this recommendation.

Only 42% of those admitted to hospital always got their Parkinson's medication at the right time. Of those who did not always receive their medication on time, 40% said this had a negative or significantly negative effect.

To enable good quality care to be delivered we need to ensure that the workforce is well informed and supported. The audit highlighted that induction and support for all new therapists working with people with Parkinson’s should be a key improvement area going forwards, and that clinicians and Parkinson's nurses should be encouraged to complete Parkinson's-specific Continuing Medical Education (CME).

Health and social care professionals should be encouraged to access learning on Parkinson's throughout their careers. The Excellence Network learning hub provides access to a range of courses for all disciplines, and signposts to external learning opportunities.

UK Parkinson's Audit data dashboards

The UK Parkinson’s Audit data dashboards provide a visual display of 2022 Audit data by audit question, clinical speciality, and geographically by country and Parkinson’s Excellence Network region.

Participating services - what next?

  • 2022 participating services can now log in and download their Individual Service Report (ISR), benchmarking their data with the national results for their specialty. 
  • Log in to add updates on your local service improvement projects or access the Bone Health project if your service has signed up.

Service eligibility, standards and guidance

Elderly care, neurology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy services were invited to take part in the 2022 Audit. 

Eligibility criteria

  • Your elderly care or neurology service sees patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s who’ve been referred to you in connection with their Parkinson’s.
  • At least 20 of these people will be seen during the 5 month data collection and submission period: 1 May to 30 September.
  • Your service is responsible for these people’s ongoing management, for example, not seen as a tertiary referral for advice.
  • Your service is able to return at least 10 Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) questionnaires. This is a short 10 question paper form which allows patients to express their views of their service. The PREM can be completed by any of your patients with Parkinson’s, even if they haven't been included in the clinical audit.

Note that inpatients should not be included in the Audit.

Elderly care and neurology service standards and guidance

The “standards and guidance” document contains the Audit questions, the standards being audited and the Audit background and methodology.

Definition of a service

An Audit site is a service provided to a geographical area by a consultant or group of consultants with (or without) a Parkinson’s nurse, or by Parkinson’s nurses alone without consultant input, regardless of who commissions the constituent parts.

Consultants and Parkinson’s nurses are best placed to decide what constitutes a discrete service. 

Clinicians working across more than one discrete service should register separate services. For example, a consultant working with different Parkinson’s nurses in different commissioning or geographical areas.

Contact us with any queries: [email protected]

Eligibility criteria

  • Your occupational therapy service sees patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s who’ve been referred to you in connection with their Parkinson’s.
  • At least 10 of these people will be seen during the 5 month data collection and submission period (1 May to 30 September) either for a review appointment, active intervention or as newly referred patients undergoing full assessment.
  • Your service is able to return at least 10 Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) questionnaires. This is a short 10 question paper form which allows patients to express their views of their service. The PREM can be completed by any of your patients with Parkinson’s, even if they haven't been included in the clinical audit.

Note that inpatients should not be included in the Audit.
 

Occupational therapy service standards and guidance

The “standards and guidance” document contains the Audit questions, the standards being audited and the Audit background and methodology.

 

Definition of a service

For the purposes of the Audit, a "service" is that administered from 1 office, regardless of how many different teams and geographical areas feed into their referrals.

Contact us with any queries: [email protected]

Eligibility criteria

  • Your physiotherapy service sees patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s who’ve been referred to you in connection with their Parkinson’s.
  • At least 10 of these people will be seen during the 5 month data collection and submission period (1 May to 30 September) either for a review appointment, active intervention or as newly referred patients undergoing full assessment. 
  • Your service is able to return at least 10 Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) questionnaires. This is a short 10 question paper form which allows patients to express their views of their service. The PREM can be completed by any of your patients with Parkinson’s, even if they haven't been included in the clinical audit.

Note that inpatients should not be included in the Audit.
 

Physiotherapy service standards and guidance

The “standards and guidance” document contains the Audit questions, the standards being audited and the Audit background and methodology.

 

Definition of a service

For the purposes of the Audit, a "service" is that administered from 1 office, regardless of how many different teams and geographical areas feed into their referrals.

Contact us with any queries: [email protected]

Eligibility criteria

  • Your speech and language therapy service sees patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s who've been referred to you in connection with their Parkinson’s.
  • At least 10 of these people will be seen during the 5 month data collection and submission period (1 May to 30 September) either for a review appointment, active intervention or as newly referred patients undergoing full assessment.
  • Your service is able to return at least 10 Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) questionnaires. This is a short 10 question paper form which allows patients to express their views of their service. The PREM can be completed by any of your patients with Parkinson’s, even if they haven't been included in the clinical audit.

Note that inpatients should not be included in the Audit.
 

Speech and language therapy service standards and guidance

The “standards and guidance” document contains the Audit questions, the standards being audited and the Audit background and methodology.

 

Definition of a service

For the purposes of the Audit, a "service" is that administered from 1 office, regardless of how many different teams and geographical areas feed into their referrals.

Contact us with any queries: [email protected]

"A national audit is the only process by which people with Parkinson's can get the uniform and standardised care that is so essential. The audit process initiated and championed by Parkinson's UK ensures a process of national benchmarking, which includes a focus on key outcome measures - motor, non-motor and multidisciplinary - to ensure that the NHS continues to deliver quality care, with personalised medicine for all people with Parkinson's across all age groups."

Ray Chaudhuri

South London Excellence Network lead, Consultant Neurologist and Professor in Neurology/Movement Disorders at King's College London and the Institute of Psychiatry.

Previous audits

Explore the findings from past audit cycles.