Working within a designated MND MDT is extremely useful to both patients and also myself as a professional as it provides consistency to patients/their carers but also helps improve communication between the MDT, patient and carers. Although communication is very good between the members of the MDT who attend the MND clinic, we unfortunately do not have any access to psychology or any direct access to social care. Social care can be a very difficult process for MND patients within our locality as often social services are needing to know if they have health needs / if they meet continuing health care (CHC) etc before they would complete their own assessments and the CHC assessments can be time consuming and although as an OT I have a good understanding of their care needs, this does not appear to help the process. Sadly this can cause unnecessary stress for patients and their carers/family.

Within our locality, patients only get accepted by the MND MDT once a neurologist has made a formal diagnosis of MND and then the patient gets referred to the MND care co-ordinator who will then complete the initial assessment and make all members of the MDT aware of the referral / patient's needs.

A key point to add is that although we have a very good MND MDT, if a patient does not have a diagnosis of MND yet or it is another RPC, regardless of their symptoms/needs they do not get the full MDT clinic approach. Some of the professionals may see them separately as part of their other caseloads but this is not always the same members of the team or the professionals with the expert skills. This can be frustrating to us as professionals as sadly they are not always able to access the same services just because they do not have a diagnosis of MND.