Virtual Wards are keeping people out of A&E
Our trust member, North East London NHS Foundation Trust has collaborated with two other providers to create a virtual wards programme. As part of this collaboration between three key providers across Mid and South Essex (MSE), the programme has seen some great outcomes for service users over the last year.
The Mid and South Essex Community Collaborative (MSECC), which underpins this new collaborative approach to service provision, is delivered in partnership between Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT), North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and Provide Community Interest Company (Provide CIC).
Virtual hospitals operate like a physical hospital; it has an Emergency Department (Urgent Community Response teams (UCRT)), and wards (the Frailty Virtual Ward and Respiratory Virtual Ward), into which a patient can be transferred. It is a model of care for people aged 18+ presenting with urgent and complex health and care needs to be supported, monitored and treated in their own homes. Virtual wards does not mean virtual care. People will be treated in person by a clinician, but this care will be at home or at the usual place of residence.
The Urgent Community Response teams (UCRT) acts as the service liaison for referrals into virtual wards, with a single point of access (SPA) and two-hour response time.
Virtual Wards allow safe and optimal care to be provided closer to home, allowing a patient to remain in familiar surroundings, improving their experience of care. Through avoiding admissions to a physical hospital, it not only alleviates the system bed pressures but reduces the risk of infections at a time of high transfer rates.
As of December 2023, the MSECC Virtual Hospital programme consists of 60 Frailty beds, 60 Hospital@Home beds, 30 Respiratory beds, and 30 Adult Mental Health beds.
As part of the reflection of outcomes from the Virtual Wards activity over the past year, some of the below highlighted statistics highlight achievements to date.
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