1 Name
2 Job title
e.g. Speech and language therapist, Clinical Scientist.
3 Name of department/service/team
e.g. Adult speech and language therapy, Specialist Disability Service.
4 Contact address
Please enter your full work address.
5 Email address
Please enter your preferred email address
6. Telephone number
Information about your service
7 What is the name of your employing organisation?
If your organisation has recently been reconigured or is about to be reconigured, please answer with who your employing organisation is on the day you complete the questionnaire and state the future or recent changes.
8 Which of the following best describes your employing organisation?
¤ NHS Community Trust ¤ NHS Hospital/Acute Trust ¤ NHS Primary Care Trust ¤ NHS Social Enterprise ¤ NHS Foundation Trust ¤ Social care ¤ Local authority ¤ State school ¤ Independent school ¤ Higher / Further education ¤ Charitable organisation ¤ Private practice ¤ Other:
Please choose only one
9 What is the geographical area covered by you or your service?
“Service” refers to the service/department/team that you stated in question 3.
10 Which client age groups do you provide services to?
¤ All age groups ¤ Pre-school age ¤ Primary school age ¤ Secondary school age ¤ Those in further education ¤ Adults
¤ Other:
Please choose all that apply
11 Which client groups do you provide services to? Those with...
Developmental disorders Acquired disorders Other Children
Adults Both
In this question, “children” are those up to the age of 18.
12 What are the eligibility criteria for access to your services?
Please enter “none” if there are no eligibility criteria for access to your overall services. Eligibility criteria for individual aspects of the service will be asked later in the survey.
13 In what settings do you provide services?
Never Infrequently Frequently All the time Healthcare
settings Client’s own home Residential care Day care settings Education settings Other
Please indicate all settings where you do or could provide services.
14 For what types of aided communication do you provide services?
¤ None
¤ Unpowered communication aids ¤ Powered communication aids
Powered communication aids are those which have a power system and usually display written text or speech output e.g. Voice output communication aids.
Unpowered communication aids are those without a power system e.g. communication charts, Etran frames.
15 Please indicate the total number of whole time equivalent (WTE) staff in your service by job title.
WTE staff in service WTE staff working with powered aided communication Speech and Language Therapist SLT with specialism in AAC Clinical scientist Clinical technologist Rehabilitation engineer Teacher Occupational Therapist Physiotherapist Assistive Technologist Assistant (Therapy, teaching, rehabilitation or other) Administration staff Others Please enter a number for each item. “Service” refers to your service/department/team as stated in your answer to question 3.
16 Which database system do you use to record your data?
For example, SystemOne or Local Access Database. If you do not use a database system, please state how you record your data.
17 When recording service information about your clients, what type of data do you collect?
¤ Client age ¤ Client sex ¤ Client postcode
¤ Client linguistic/cultural background ¤ Client condition
¤ Client time of onset of condition
¤ Communication aids/strategies used by the client ¤ Other:
18 Do you or your service assess individuals’ skills and capabilities for their suitability to use powered communication aids?
¤ Yes ¤ No
Please tick yes if you carry out any type of assessment, you can expand on this in the next question.
19 What is involved in this assessment?
Only answer this question if you answered yes to question 18.
¤ Expressive/receptive language tests ¤ Cognition/memory tests
¤ Physical assessments ¤ Medical assessments
¤ Checklists of communicative competence ¤ Communication aid trial and evaluation ¤ Other:
20 Do you or your service provide loan of powered communication aids for trialling?
Yes No
Please choose all that apply.
21 Please list the powered communication aids that you currently have available for loan. Please provide as much detail as possible including symbol packages if known (e.g. 1 x Powerbox with CallTalk vocabulary, 2 x iPad with Predictable).
Only answer this question if you answered yes to question 20.
22 Please indicate the maximum length of time equipment can be loaned to an individual.
¤ 1 month ¤ 3 months ¤ 6 months ¤ 12 months ¤ No limit ¤ Other:
23 Does your service fund provision of powered communication aids for long term use?
¤ Yes ¤ No
Choose yes if the service funds devices from its budget, you can list other sources of funding in the next question.
24. Please describe any eligibility criteria to receive funding for provision of powered communication aids.
Only answer this question if you answered yes to question 23.
25. What is your equipment budget for powered communication aids for this year?
Only answer this question if you answered yes to question 23.
26. From which sources is funding secured for aided communication provision? ¤ Private purchase ¤ Charities ¤ Local authority ¤ NHS ¤ Education ¤ Pooled budgets ¤ Other:
27 Which of the following do you or your service provide?
¤ Information on powered communication aids ¤ Repair of powered communication aids
¤ Replacement of powered communication aids during repair
¤ Maintenance of powered communication aids ¤ Customising or manufacture of hardware ¤ Customising or manufacture of software ¤ Customising or creation of vocabularies
¤ Training for people who use powered communication aids
¤ Training for conversational partners
¤ Training for professionals working with powered communication aids
¤ Follow up reviews of powered communication aid use
¤ Ongoing support for powered communication aid use
¤ Other:
Please choose all that apply
28 Do you or your service provide follow up reviews for people who use powered aided communication?
¤ Yes ¤ No
29 How frequently do you or your service provide follow up reviews?
Only answer this question if you answered yes to question 28.
¤ On request ¤ On re- referral ¤ Every 6 months ¤ Every year ¤ Every two years ¤ Other
30 Which services do you refer your clients to for the following? Information on powered communication aids Assessment Loan equipment for trial Provision of powered communication aids Repair of powered communication aids Replacement of powered communication aids during repair Maintenance of powered communication aids Customising or
Customising or manufacture of software Customising or creation of vocabularies Training for people who use powered communication aids Training for
conversational partners Training for professionals working with powered communication aids Follow up reviews of powered communication aid use Ongoing support for powered communication aid use Other
Please indicate any other services that you refer to, or work with, within the text box.
31 How many total referrals to other services have you made in the past year related to powered aided communication use?
32 Which services do you receive referrals from for the following?
Information on powered communication aids Assessment Loan equipment for trial Provision of powered communication aids Repair of powered communication aids Replacement of powered communication aids during repair Maintenance of powered communication aids Customising or manufacture of hardware Customising or manufacture of software Customising or creation of vocabularies
Training for people who
use powered communication aids Training for
Training for professionals working with powered communication aids Follow up reviews
of powered communication aid use
Ongoing support for powered communication aid use
Other
Please indicate services and other organisations that refer clients to you within the text box.
Please also indicate whether you get referrals from clients themselves.
33 How many total referrals to you or your service have you received in the past year related to powered aided communication use?
In this section, please provide estimates of values where it is not possible to provide veriied data.
34 What is the total number of people who use powered aided communication that you or your service have on your current caseload?
35 What is the total number of people who use powered aided communication known to you or your service? Please also split this number into aetiologies.
Please ill this in for your current caseload if you are unable to answer about all clients known to you or your service. Please also list any other aetiologies not covered in the table in the box labelled “other”.
Number of clients
Total
Stroke Head injury Cerebral palsy
Profound and Multiple Learning Dificulties Autistic Spectrum Disorder Developmental delay Other learning dificulties Multiple sclerosis Motor neuron disease Parkinson’s disease Muscular dystrophy Head and neck cancer Cleft palate and
craniofacial malformations Dementia
Other
36 Of those clients known to you or your
service, how many do not have English as their irst language? ¤ 0 ¤ 1- 5 ¤ 6- 10 ¤ 11- 20 ¤ 21- 30 ¤ 31- 40 ¤ 41- 50 ¤ Over 50
Please ill this in for your current caseload if you are unable to answer about all clients known to you or your service.
37 Please list the powered communication devices which are used by the clients known to you or your service. Please include as much detail as possible (e.g. 1 x Powerbox with CallTalk vocabulary, 2 x iPad with Predictable). 38 How did you obtain the data for this survey?
¤ Estimates from my experience
¤ Estimates based on having previously extracted this data
¤ Data extracted from a database ¤ Other:
39 Any further comments or questions? 40 Service information contact
We would like to contact you or your service again to gain more detailed information on provision of aided
communication and the processes involved and data about your caseload. We would like to access your anonymised data to get really accurate information that will fully capture the current use and provision of AAC services across the UK. Please can you state in the box who is the best person to contact about providing us with this information and how best to contact them.
Thank you for taking time to complete the survey. If you have any questions about the survey or would like more information about how you can contribute further to the study, please email Sarah Creer at [email protected]. uk or telephone 0114 222 2978.
Please return the survey either in person, electronic submission or by post to:
Sarah Creer,
School of Health and Related Research, Regent Court,
30 Regent Street, Shefield, S1 4DA
This research project is led by Communication Matters (ISAAC UK), a registered charity, no. 327500, and a company registered in England and Wales, no. 01965474. The project is funded by the National Lottery through Big Lottery Fund. The research partners are Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester Metropolitan
This tool contributes to the objectives set out by the Department for Education funded grants for
Augmentative and Alternative Communication. This tool aims to map teams, departments and services who provide services for people with AAC across England so that all stakeholders will have a clearer idea of the resources and services available outside of the specialised and tertiary services. It aims to provide a clear
understanding for commissioners of the need for and the cost of local and specialised AAC provision. The data gathered will contribute to identifying priority areas (across geographical areas, sector and caseload) for service development which will address existing inequities in provision.
Inclusion criteria (please refer to glossary for deinitions): 1. Services with a universal remit across a deined
geographical area (e.g. SLT service, including AAC, in Barnsley).
OR
2. Other services with a universal remit across a deined population and area (e.g. people with MND in Yorkshire, school pupils with SLCN in a special school in Huddersield).
AND
3. Provide, or are involved in the provision of AAC services, equipment or support OR have a caseload including people with speech, language and communication needs where it would be expected that there would be an AAC need.
Exclusion criteria:
1. Services without a universal remit across a deined geographical area (i.e. tertiary services, independent practitioners, companies)