Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has shared an evaluation of its virtual royal infirmary (VRI) programme, demonstrating the impact of its “hospital-level care directly to patients’ homes”.
Since launching in June 2023, the service covers seven specialities, across acute medicine, cardiology, gastroenterology, general surgery, renal, respiratory and vascular care, with the hospital noting the service supports a “reduction in unnecessary hospital admissions and supports early discharge”, adding “in line with patients’ preferred choice of care”.
The trust reports a total discharge of 752 patients from the virtual ward so far, adding that with admission rates “growing steadily at 73 per month” patients on average stay 9.8 days in the virtual ward service. This has reportedly increased inpatient bed availability by 6.7 and 11.5 beds per day in 2023/24 and 2024/25 respectively, with a total of 3,248 avoided inpatient bed days.
Further data shows key information on the different demographics utilising the virtual ward, such as patients “tending to be older, with 67.4% aged over 55”. 96.6% of patients reported a good or very good experience, and the trust noted a “positive return on investment” achieving £4.90 for every £1 invested.
When looking towards the future, the trust aims to build on its current success through further integration, developing new referral streams and expanding to additional specialities.
Cardiology consultant, Jiv Gosai, spoke on the implementation of the VRI programme commenting: “Patients have a strong preference to be treated in their own home wherever possible. Until now, we’ve had no option but to keep patients in hospital for extended periods of time. Virtual wards allow us to deliver the same interventions and monitoring for patients, with regular review to ensure that any deterioration is captured early and allows treatment to be changed or escalated to hospital admission.”
Last year, HTN visited Bradford Teaching Hospitals to interview members of the team to learn how the organisation’s command centre works. During the visit we learned the impact on operational performance and on the emergency department, patient flow, discharge, deterioration management, and the hospital’s operations at night. Read more here >
Join HTN in April for our webinar on: ‘virtual wards in practice: approaches and learnings / what does the future of virtual wards look like?‘ where we’ll discuss a range of approaches to the virtual ward concept, including examples of best practice, challenges, failures and successes.
