New guidance entitled ‘Virtual Wards and Urgent Community Response Capabilities Framework’ has been published in order to support the expansion of virtual ward and urgent in-home service delivery across England.
The guidance is said to be the first multi-professional framework of its kind. It was developed by Skills for Health and commissioned by NHS England in recognition of the new ways of working used by virtual wards and urgent community response teams.
The framework aims to inform workforce education, training and career progression along with informing local workforce models.
It provides “a standard and greater clarity” on the scope of practice for nurses, allied health professionals and support workers who work in virtual wards and urgent community response teams. It also builds on existing good practice whilst setting out the core skills and capabilities for health and care professionals in these teams, describing the new skills and capabilities required to enable “effective and efficient use of new technologies and digitisation.”
“Equipping the workforce with unified knowledge and skills of care delivery in the community is vital to the successful expansion of patient care in the comfort of their own homes,” said Rosemarie Simpson, Senior Consultant at Skills for Health. “The pandemic accelerated the transition to technology enabled community care and urgent assessment of patients in their homes, and these dynamic and innovative changes to service delivery have yielded significant operational benefits where implemented.
“A robust national framework, which enables healthcare workers to better engage families and carers and helps them to manage ongoing clinical risk outside of the hospital setting for example, therefore provides a solid platform to be able to scale these innovations.”
Stephanie Somerville, Director of Community Transformation at NHS England, and Shabana Janjua, Director of Community Care at NHS England, added: “This framework is key to informing workforce education, training and career progression as well as informing local workforce models. The framework provides a standard and greater clarity on the scope of practice for nurses, allied health professionals and support workers in multi-disciplinary teams working within virtual wards and urgent community response teams in the community.”
The framework can be viewed here.
