by Dr Janet Carter & Dr Jo Rodda
This audit looked at patients with a recorded ICD-10 diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) or PD dementia (PDD). We measured 31 such patients, 24 of whom were known to the PDNS. 28 had PDD, 1 had dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), 1 had PD with hallucinations, 1 had lifelong schizophrenia and late life IPD. Many DLB cases are probably not recorded due to lack of ICD-10 code.
We measured sources of referral for these patients – most came from PDNS and GP, much fewer from neurology, liaison or adult psychiatry.
Neuropsychiatric symptoms and medication:
Information in most recent clinic letter:
Based on these findings we plan to make the following changes to the service:
- PD nurses will attend the next memory service meeting
- Communication about PD patients to be agenda item for upcoming meetings with local GPs and neurologists
- Documentation standards developed for all clinics including letter template that requires specific information including: diagnosis, medication, information paragraph for GPs included for all patients on antipsychotics, cc all patients with PD letter to PDNS.
