NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) has shared plans to develop its virtual hospital, with the aim of having 1000 virtual beds and remote monitoring in place by July 2026.
An investment of £20 million has been made to support the delivery of the NHS Renewal Urgent and Unscheduled Care and Improving Flow Commission, with a further £2.56 million for Hospital @ Home, GGC revealed. Key focuses for improved patient flow include a flow navigation centre offering direct assessment and navigation to services such as eTriage.
The Hospital @ Home service framework is reportedly in final draft, with the initial test of additional beds to begin with East Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, and East Renfrewshire. “Learning from this early implementation will directly inform and shape the further/ wider scale-up of the service,” GCC states.
The first phase of virtual hospital pathways to go live before the end of 2025 include a mental health clozapine initiation and titration pathway, a heart failure pathway, and a discharge to scan pathway. A new paediatric Hospital @ Home service is also planned as part of the region’s women and children’s programme.
Elsewhere, the board highlights actions to be taken in line with its primary care programme, with a new Vision IT system to be installed for GPs, plans for AI and “asynchronous consulting”, and work to be done on building intelligence across primary care activity and capacity.
A refresh of strategy has also been completed, with GCC moving forward with the prioritisation of key projects to support primary care sustainability and the ambition of “transforming together”.
Wider trend: Virtual care
The Humber Health Partnership (HHP) has outlined a vision for its virtual hospital model as part of its Clinical Services Strategy for 2025 – 2030, aiming to reduce the overall size of its physical estate and take advantage of new technologies to deliver care closer to communities. HHP is to consider the development of virtual care pathways in areas such as urgent and emergency care, inpatient care, and diagnostics. For outpatients, possibilities are being explored for using medical devices and AI-enabled surveillance to detect changes in patient condition, taking away the need for regular check-ups.
NHS England has announced plans for an “online hospital” to go live in 2027, with an aim to deliver up to “8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years”. The service, NHS Online, will aim to connect patients virtually to clinicians based anywhere in England, with triage to be completed through the NHS App, and appointments for scans then offered at local community diagnostic centres. The initial focus will be on planned treatment areas with the longest waiting times, with NHS England planning to extend the offering to further areas if clinically safe to do so remotely.
The UK government has shared a prediction that remote monitoring will soon free up half a million appointments per year, offering insights into pilot programmes across the country, including a government-funded trial led by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and the University of Sheffield to test the benefits of remote monitoring for motor neurone patients. Projects like this will help inform the “wider expansion” of remote monitoring for long-term conditions, as set out by the government’s Elective Reform Plan, it states. “Once in full flow, remote monitoring is expected to free up around 500,000 appointments every year, so patients can be seen by specialists faster.”
