This session will cover the experience of the UK health system, the NHS, in introducing Virtual Wards at scale across the country. A process that began as part of the pandemic response in 2020 and is now, four years on, a service reaching around 10,000 people daily, in every part of England, on the NHS.
Virtual Wards provide hospital-level care within someone's own home, supported by remote monitoring technology, with clinicians reviewing dashboards. Sometimes, care will be provided fully remotely, but often it is a hybrid model with some additional hands-on care provided in the home.
Tara will share her perspectives on this development, as she was the Chief Digital Officer for the NHS in England at this time, and provide patient perspectives on the new care model. This move is a global phenomenon, and she will illustrate her talk with some examples of how care delivery is shifting towards home, both in the UK and globally.
She will also talk about what the future of healthcare could be, if care was systematically more home based and tech enabled and how this would change the way we think about hospitalisation.
Tara is keen to share and learn internationally on digital care progress and as well as answering any questions, would like to hear your ideas, suggestions and advice on what is working well locally and how we can accelerate progress to become part of mainstream health care, as part of the Questions and Answers session.
