Abstract
The Brighton Memory Clinic was a three-month pilot project aimed at exploring the usefulness of a neuropsychological screening service based in two GP surgeries. This paper reports on part of this project which looked at the service-users’ satisfaction with this model of service delivery. This was evaluated by means of a semi-structured interview at the initial clinic assessment and by a postal survey (n=18) three months later. At interview, 74% of attendees (n=19) said they were ‘happy/pleased’ to attend the memory clinic, 16% reported being ‘neither happy nor unhappy’ and two were either ‘a little anxious’ or ‘suspicious’. In terms of location, 58% said it was ‘fairly’ to ‘very important’ for the clinic to be at the GP surgery and 26% said they would not have attended if the appointment had been at the hospital outpatients. When asked about their expectations of the clinic, 42% of responses were about treatment for their memory problems and 38% for an assessment. At three months follow-up: 83% (n=18) of attendees who returned the questionnaire rated ease of referral to the clinic as ‘very easy’, 35% as ‘quite easy’, 6% as neutral and 6% as ‘quite difficult’; 53% rated travelling to the clinic as ‘very easy’ and 35% as ‘quite easy’; 78% rated the therapist’s understanding of their difficulties as ‘very well understood' and 22% as ‘quite well understood’; 71% rated their satisfaction of the explanation given for their tests as ‘very satisfied’, 12% as ‘quite satisfied’ and 18% ‘neutral’. When asked about the advice given, 62% said they were ‘very satisfied’, 15% as ‘quite satisfied’, 15% as ‘neutral’ and 8% as ‘not satisfied’. The majority of attendees did not find the test procedures stressful: 67% rated it as ‘not at all stressful’, 6% as ‘not stressful’, 17% as ‘neutral’ and 11% as ‘quite stressful’. Overall, service users appeared to value the assessment at the clinic but wanted more help with their memory problems. It is therefore suggested that future memory clinics could usefully be linked with memory re-training groups and other psychosocial interventions.