Understanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on delivery of rehabilitation in specialist palliative care services: An analysis of the CovPall-Rehab survey data
Authors: Bayly Joanne , Bradshaw Andy , Fettes Lucy , Omarjee Muhammed , Talbot-Rice Helena , Walshe Catherine , Sleeman Katherine E , Bajwah Sabrina , Dunleavy Lesley , Hocaoglu Mevhibe , Oluyase Adejoke , Garner Ian , Cripps Rachel L , Preston Nancy , Fraser Lorna K , Murtagh Fliss EM , Higginson Irene J , Maddocks Matthew 
Published: April 2021

Background

Palliative rehabilitation involves multi-professional processes and interventions aimed at optimising patients’ symptom self-management, independence, and social participation throughout advanced illness. Rehabilitation services were highly disrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Aim

To understand rehabilitation provision in palliative care services during the Covid-19 pandemic, identifying and reflecting on adaptative and innovative practice to inform ongoing provision.

Design

Cross-sectional national online survey.

Setting/participants

Rehabilitation leads for specialist palliative care services across hospice, hospital, or community settings, conducted from 30/07/20 to 21/09/2020.

Findings

61 completed responses (England, n=55; Scotland, n=4; Wales, n=1; and Northern Ireland, n=1) most frequently from services based in hospices (56/61, 92%) providing adult rehabilitation. Most services (55/61, 90%) reported rehabilitation provision becoming remote during Covid-19 and half reported reduced caseloads. Rehabilitation teams frequently had staff members on sick-leave with suspected/confirmed Covid-19 (27/61, 44%), redeployed to other services/organisations (25/61, 41%) or furloughed (15/61, 26%). Free text responses were constructed into four themes: (i) fluctuating shared spaces; (ii) remote and digitised rehabilitation offer; (iii) capacity to provide and participate in rehabilitation; (iv) Covid-19 as a springboard for positive change. These represent how rehabilitation services contracted, reconfigured, and were redirected to more remote modes of delivery, and how this affected the capacity of clinicians and patients to participate in rehabilitation.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates how changes in provision of rehabilitation during the pandemic could act as a springboard for positive changes. Hybrid models of rehabilitation have the potential to expand the equity of access and reach of rehabilitation within specialist palliative care.

Key Statements

What is already known about the topic?

Guidelines recommend that rehabilitation targeting function, well-being, and social participation is provided by specialist palliative care services.

Prior to Covid-19, there was variable provision of palliative rehabilitation in the UK. This variation was related to local service priorities, funding, and commissioning constraints.

What this paper adds

Over time, Covid-19 related disruptions forced services to reconfigure and adapt which caused fluctuations in the shared spaces in which health professionals, patients and family care givers met to participate in rehabilitation.

These fluctuations resulted in the adoption of digital and remote forms of care which altered health professionals’ and patients’ capacity to participate in, and the equity of access to and reach of, rehabilitation.

Covid-19 has acted as a springboard for learning, with many rehabilitation services hoping to move into the future by (re)gaining losses and integrating these with lessons learned during the pandemic.

Implications for practice, theory or policy

Recommendations are made to support extended reach and more equitable access to rehabilitation in palliative care services.

We recommend mixed methods evaluations of hybrid models of in-person and online rehabilitation across palliative care settings.