Healthcare delivery
Virtual wards: achieving the NHS ambition
Virtual Wards are a crucial part of NHS plans to increase capacity and tackle the increasing operational pressures facing the NHS. But what is a Virtual Ward? What benefits will they deliver? Furthermore, how well is the NHS doing in delivering on its ambition for Virtual Wards? Tracey Barr provides an insight.
Virtual Wards support patients, who would otherwise be in an acute hospital bed, to receive the acute care, monitoring, and treatment they need in their own home or normal place of residence. This can have benefits for individual patients, as well as for the flow of patients through the wider health and care system, by helping to prevent avoidable admissions to, and support safe and timely discharges from, hospital.
A safe, efficient alternative to inpatient
care, Virtual Wards provide personalised care and patient choice, by combining face-to-face provision and technology to allow hospital-level care in settings outside of the hospital. Patients are managed remotely by a clinical team via a digital platform. Virtual Wards differ from other community services in a number of ways:1 l They are led by a named senior clinician or consultant practitioner who could be a physician, nurse, Allied Health Professional (AHP,) or GP depending on local arrangements.
l There are clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria.
l The service has access to hospital-level interventions and diagnostics.
l There is daily clinical input, with equity of access to specialty input, for a hospital inpatient.
The concept of a ‘Virtual Ward’ has been around for many years, often in the form of ‘Hospital at Home’ services. However, the rapid development of digital innovations (such as
telecare, remote monitoring, wearables and hands-free tech) that allow patients to receive their care and be monitored remotely, together with the acceleration of their adoption and more widespread use during the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a much greater focus on Virtual Wards as part of the solution to the pressures facing the NHS.
The benefits The evidence base underpinning the development of Virtual Wards is growing and there are many examples that demonstrate that there are clear benefits - for patients, carers, staff, and providers, as well as for the wider system. These benefits can be synthesised into
Analysis of the latest data on Virtual Ward bed occupancy shows average occupancy increased from 64.1% in July 2023 to 70.2% in November 2023. This is below the target occupancy of 80% set out in the winter resilience plan, but an improvement.
three overarching themes: l Patient choice, equity of access and preferences.
l Patient wellbeing, safety, and outcomes. l System-wide capacity, productivity, and staff experience.
A review of the evidence base recently undertaken by GIRFT2
and the NHS England
Virtual Ward programme summarised the benefits seen in existing Virtual Wards, including Hospital at Home services: l Over 99% of patients on existing Virtual Wards would recommend the service.
l Patients are eight times less likely to experience functional decline while in a Virtual Ward compared to equivalent treatment in an acute setting.
l Patients are five times less likely to acquire an infection when treated on a Virtual Ward compared to an acute setting.
l 23% of patients treated in a Virtual Ward achieved a more independent social care outcome than they would have in an acute setting.
l Treatment and care in a more comfortable March 2024 I
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