Educating professionals about Parkinson’s

A recent report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has shown more than a quarter of NHS and social services in England are failing to meet essential standards. John Bains, our Education Delivery Manager, talks about the impact of this report and what Parkinson's UK is doing to help.

The report by the CQC – established in 2009 to inspect and regulate health and social care services – is fairly damning. After inspecting 14,000 sites, including hospitals and care homes, they found many of them had problems with staff shortages and poor medicines management. At its worst, one nursing home was banned from admitting new residents because of concerns over how drugs were handed out.

Poor medicines management is something that people with Parkinson's experience far more often than they should and we have a whole campaign dedicated to it: Get It On Time.

Get It On Time forms a major part of the work that our national network of Education and Training Officers undertake. They go into hospitals, care homes and other organisations to help them understand more about Parkinson's and what their patients or residents need to make sure they are as well looked after as possible.

Last year our Education and Training Officers educated more than 19,000 health and social care professionals about Parkinson's. But, as the CQC's report makes clear, there's still plenty of work to be done.

Tell us your experiences so we can continue our work to make sure that people with Parkinson's get the best care possible.

Let us know if you, or the person you care for, have experienced any problems with care, and our Education and Training Officers can offer their expert advice and training. Contact us on professionals@parkinsons.org.uk

Together we can make a real difference.