Table 5 Patient’s access to resources

Socioeconomic factors

No, I mean thanks to God I’m from a good family background so financially - yes, personally I mean obviously through the injury myself I’m [broke] down completely because I’m not working for three years but when it comes to travelling I think my family members they’ve been very supportive. [3BV04]

I do think it link to their role at work. A lot of people with degrees are in occupations where it might be quite nice to have a paid morning off.. Also, we get paid. People who have got degrees tend to be in jobs where if you have half a day off or a day off for an appointment, (a) you’re covered by the Disability Act, the Equalities Act and (2) you get paid. [3BV01]

For me, if I took the day off I will get paid. Where I work it would go down as a sick day and I would get paid. I’d be behind on my work, but I still would get my daily money for that, it wouldn’t cause me any hardship. [3BF07]

So if I come in and see you at eight o’clock in the morning, I can come and see you, by nine o’clock I’ve left, by 10 o’clock I’m at work and my boss is quite happy. [3BF07]

Well, that would obviously be beneficial for them to have virtual, because they don’t know how many appointments they’re going to have. So if they’re having to go on a two-weekly basis for physio, they’re going to - I have to think twice before I go to an appointment. Before I got my disability badge, I had to think twice before I went to an appointment to Northwick Park Hospital, because the charges were so high for the car park. [3BF05]

I’ve booked a cab four times - it cost me £200. One way is £125 … I would be like, oh no I can’t come because even dreams are impossible when you are injured, so the journey would be impossible for me because I wouldn’t be able to afford £100/£200 every week or every two weeks. [3BF04]

I mean, if I’m coming from XX then obviously it’s quite far and it’s like more than 100 miles, I think, around 100 miles. Imagine if I were living further away, I would have to look for accommodation first. [3BV04]

Whereas, if you’re in work like construction, for example, you don’t get paid if you’re self-employed, for having a day off. So, I think they’re the kinds of jobs that if you don’t get paid when you’re having a consultancy because you’re self-employed, you’re going to prefer a virtual. I think it links very much directly to employment roles, workload, and whether you get paid when you have the time off work for consultations. [3BV01]

If I couldn’t get in my car and drive round the [x motorway], I can understand why it would be beneficial to be able to do it virtually. [3BF07]

Equipment factors

I’ve got my iPad set up and I don’t have a big room to set it up and a tripod and all that sort of stuff. So the video is always pointing slightly the wrong way and stuff like that, it’s not ideal. I think if we all did it more we’d be better kitted up for it. [3BF07]

When you’re doing exercises and it’s running at about 10 frames a second or 20 frames a second, it’s just not very good … I don’t know whether it’s just because XX got a lot on the internet, because I’ve only used it once, but the frame rate and stuff is just shocking. [3BF07]

Yes. I fall into that category, actually, because I’m not techy and whatever I seem to do with the phone goes wrong. Or the computer. Or the lighting system. I do have this strange effect on equipment [3BF04]

I suppose if you take away the option of virtual, there’s only one option left for them. They just have one option. They haven’t got any other options. If they haven’t got the technology or haven’t got the equipment or don’t know how to work the technology, virtual is not going to work for them, is it? [3BF01]

But they’ve [older people] normally got a big and young family who teach them how to do it. [3BV01]

They (older people) use it more than us at the moment [laughs]. If you look into it, like my dad, my mum, everybody, they are using Twitter, social media, Facebook and all that. I’m like, “oh my God they’re using it more than us”. [3BV04]

Yeah, WhatsApp and all of those sorts of things. I do quite a lot of craft work and so we’ve been doing Zoom for that. I don’t think much work gets done, I think we just sit and yack [3BF02]

I’ve been able to continue to work because I’ve been using the virtual meetings, which means that I can stay at home. So maybe that’s just already in my mindset, compared to other people who only have only known one thing and feel that if it’s - if they change that it might not be as good. [3BV03]

I took the Zoom invite from my phone and then I just put the details on my work laptop. So I actually just typed in the meeting invite and the password and did it that way. That’s no problem, but I could have done it, I guess, from my phone. Just pressed - tapped on the link and then just gone straight through to that waiting room. [3BV03]