This website has information about project PACT, and will be used to engage with study participants throughout the project.

What is project PACT?

Background and aims. As countries rolled-back the various interventions aimed at reducing the impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic moving towards a ‘new normal’ where the virus is endemic and social distancing restrictions were relaxed, the use of synchronous remote consultations fell across settings and specialties (particularly in physiotherapy). This research aims to understand why physiotherapy services across settings largely abandoned remote consultations (in particular videoconsultations) by drawing from two frameworks: the Nonadoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) and the Planning and Evaluating Remote Consultation Services (PERCS) framework. I do this by focusing on the lens of patient experience, health inequalities and patient-clinician trust. Methods. Mixed methods, split in four workstreams. (1) Semi-structured interviews to clinical, non-clinical and policy stakeholders across settings using the NASSS-CAT INTERVIEW tool. (2) Analysis of previous videoconsultation patient experience surveys using innovative Natural Language Processing Tools query-driven topic modelling (3) quantitative analysis of disparities in access to remote consultations across population groups using routinely collected information from patient records and a (4) focus group drawn from senior, multidisciplinary policy and technology and patient stakeholders to review preliminary findings and triangulate across wider telemedicine initiatives. Results: To follow. Conclusions/Implications. We expect this research to validate previous findings that the sustainability of remote consultations is hinged on individual and collective decisions aimed at resolving contradictions and tensions between ‘big strategy/policy’ and the day to day management and delivery of healthcare services in the pressurised environment of the pandemic. This research provides a number of innovations, in terms of methodological approach, research subject and addressing gaps in the literature.

Who can participate in Project PACT?

• Healthcare institutions that provide Physiotherapy services (either virtual or face to face)
• Individual Healthcare Practioners involved in Physiotherapy services
• Community organisations who represent the interests of patients with musculo-skeletal conditions, or particular population groups.
• Senior Policy and Strategy technology practitioners