Purpose: We developed a questionnaire designed to determine the state of services provided by the National Health Service within the UK for adults with acquired neurologically caused communication disorders. A further aim was to compare our results with those from a similar survey conducted 10 years ago by Mackenzie et al.
Method: We sent questionnaires to 264 managers and directors of adult speech and language therapy services in the UK. We asked questions about staffing levels, regional variations, patterns of service delivery at acute and chronic stages and staff time spent working with different communication and swallowing problems.
Results: Nearly 53% of average staff time was spent working with swallowing disorders accompanying neurological damage (dysphagia) compared to 24% with aphasia. As the percentage of time spent working with swallowing increased, the percentage of time spent working with aphasia reduced. Out of the time spent on aphasia treatment, 48% averages less than 3 h per week duration and just 4.8% averages more than 3 h per week, which was correlated with total number of speech and language therapists employed by a service. We found a significant difference only between London, with the highest total staff numbers, and the South West, with the lowest. We also found significant relationships between staff numbers and population size and staff numbers and the level of referrals to the service.
Conclusions: Our main conclusions are: (1) while there may have been an increase in the number of speech and language therapists working with acquired and progressive neurogenic conditions in the past 10 years, they are mainly working with swallowing disorders, and (2) findings agree with recent studies showing that the amount of treatment or therapy that aphasic clients receive is well below that recommended by the literature.