SSPED: Swallow screening tool for patients with Parkinson's in the Emergency Department
A group of tools, instructional video and implementation guide, to improve the quality and experience of care for patients with Parkinson's in the Emergency Department (ED) environment.
- Inpatient care and medicines management
- Standardising assessments
- Tools
- Videos
- Doctor (Other)
- Healthcare Assistant
- Nurse (other)
- Speech and language therapist
- Complex
- End of life
The SSPED is a swallow screen tool aimed at improving the quality of care, access to nutrition, hydration and medication, and access to alternative nutrition and hydration for people with Parkinson's in ED.
As well as the basic SSPED, modified versions for ambulatory patients and for enhanced/out of hours decision-making have also been developed. All the tools are available to download, and a recorded webinar explains how the SSPED was developed and how it should be used.
These screening tools should be used as a guide and must be adapted for different organisations. Before using the SSPED in your own NHS organisation, carefully consider the implementation process, including training, audit and involvement of key stakeholders.
An implementation guide has been created to enable you to adapt and implement the SSPED in your ED.
Basic SSPED
All healthcare professionals working in the ED should be able to complete this swallow screen.
Enhanced / out of hours SSPED (E/OOH SSPED)
This SSPED can be used if timely access to speech and language therapy is impacted due to high caseload demand, or being out of hours.
Ambulatory patient form and ambulatory SSPED
This SSPED contains questions for the patient to complete themselves, or with support from a loved one or carer. The questionnaire can be provided by a triage nurse so the patient can complete it in the waiting room before their initial assessment.
The ambulatory SSPED can be completed by a doctor, nurse, or advanced clinical practitioner only if the patient has responded "yes" to any of the questions in part 2 of the patient form.
An introduction to the Swallow Screen for patients with Parkinson's in ED (SSPED)
This recorded webinar from July 2024 explains in detail how to use the SSPED and how to implement it in your own NHS organisation.
Film length: 43 minutes, 6 seconds.
The SSPED was created by speech and language therapists at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust with support from an Excellence Network large project grant. You can find out about the project here.