NHS England has awarded a contract with a reported value of £98,237.70 to Health Innovation Network (previously AHSN), for a review of the London region’s virtual ward and remote monitoring programme.
The review was set to identify key features of “optimal” virtual ward models across clinical and digital domains, with the aim of informing decision-making both on short-term investment and longer term sustainability.
NHS England recently published information on virtual ward services in each integrated care board in England and at national level, with the data indicating that four ICBs are currently meeting the target for services to include 40-50 virtual ward beds per 100,000 adults by the end of this year. The newly released figures from November 2023 indicate that England has a total capacity of 11,231 virtual ward beds. This translates to a virtual ward capacity of 21.9 per 100,000 of the GP-registered population aged 16 or over. Of those virtual ward beds, November saw England average a 70.2 percent occupancy rate.
In other procurement news, Surrey Heartlands ICS recently awarded a £2.975 million contract for a virtual care digital platform solution; Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust awarded a contract for a patient portal; and South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust signed an eight-year contract extension for the provision of the trust’s EPR.
Additionally, last month, we covered the news that London Ambulance Service awarded a contract and framework agreement to five suppliers for the provision and support of electronic patient record systems.
In other news from the capital, we recently interviewed North West London ICB’s project manager for social prescribing, Clare Gallagher, on her insights into successful digital social prescribing and priorities for the future as well as ongoing projects. Read Clare’s interview in full here.
In November we interviewed Cara Afzal, programme director for data and digital at Health Innovation Manchester, to learn more about her journey into digital health and key learnings from her career; catch up here.
