Background:
The number
of people affected by
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is
increasing in the United Kingdom driven by population
ageing
. The treatment of
the
disease is complex, resource intensive and
currently
there is no known cure to PD.
The National Health Service (NHS), the public organisation delivering healthcare in
the UK, is under financial pressures
. T
here is a need to find innovative ways to
impr
ove the operational and financial performance of treating PD patients. The use
of community services is a new and promising way of providing treatment and care
to PD patients
a
reduced cost than hospital
care
. The aim of this study is to evaluate
the poten
tial
operational and financial benefits, which could be achieved through
increased integration of community services in the delivery of treatment and care to
PD pat
ients in the UK
without compromising care quality
.
Methods
:
A
Discrete Event Simulation mod
el
was developed to represent the PD
care structure including patients’ pathways, treatment modes, and the mix of
resources required to treat PD patients
. The model was parametrised with data from
a large NHS
Trust in the UK
and validated using information
from the same trust
.
Four possible scenarios involving increased use of community services were
simulated on the model.
Results
:
Shifting mor
e patients with PD
from hospital
treatment to c
om
munity
s
ervices will reduce the number of visits of PD patients t
o hospitals
by about 25%
and the number of PD doctors and nurses required to treat these patients
by around
32%. Hospital based treatment costs
and overall
should decrease by
26% leading to
overall savings of 10% in the total cost of treating PD patients.