South East region virtual wards evaluation: final report

PPL

This independent evaluation of virtual wards in the South East is a pioneering effort to fill the critical evidence gap, offering actionable insights for health care providers, policy-makers and researchers.

South East region virtual wards evaluation: final report

What do virtual wards look like in England?

Health Foundation – February 2024

Key points

• The Improvement Analytics Unit (IAU) is a partnership between the Health Foundation and NHS England. In this working paper, the IAU uses aggregate national data to explore what virtual wards currently look like across England and their effects on patients, staff and hospital capacity.
• Virtual wards provide hospital-level care to patients in their own homes. There are many different models of virtual wards. Some cover specific conditions, while others provide care for a much broader range of patients.
• Virtual wards have the potential to improve outcomes for both patients and the health care system. But we need high-quality data, careful monitoring and robust evaluations to understand if this is the case – and for which patients and in what contexts. This will provide learning and drive improvement. 

Further information – What do virtual wards look like in England?

Advice for heart failure patients added to GIRFT’s virtual wards guidance

GIRFT – 9th November 2023

Practical advice to support the use of virtual wards to care for people with heart failure has now been added to guidance developed by Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) and NHS England’s Virtual Ward programme.

The new section contains information on inclusion criteria and stages of the pathway for heart failure patients who chose to have their care provided at home, along with useful links. These include a link to NHS England’s recent guidance note outlining the minimum requirements for the care of people with heart failure on a virtual ward.

Further information – Making the most of virtual wards, including Hospital at Home