Heartbeat: There’s no place like home… to rest, recuperate and recover

May 13, 2021

Recently during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a significant focus on the admitting capacity of hospitals, how many patients can you safely get streaming through the doors before you reach capacity. Likewise, there was an equal focus on ensuring discharges were well planned, effective and timely. In simple terms, you admit sick people in to your hospital, and you send people home when they’re well – but what happens if you have people who are still infected with a potentially dangerous virus, but stable and medically fit enough to go home. You refer them to our latest service – Monitoring You at Home.

Proving that necessity is the mother of invention, the principle of ‘virtual wards’ with patients with a highly infectious disease being discharged would have been wrapped in red tape and buried under a mountain of policies but a fresh look at our processes with a truly patients focussed approach has meant we have been able to launch our first COVID-19 virtual ward successfully.

To find out more about the new service, Heartbeat caught up with Tammy Davies, Group Director of Primary Care, Community and Therapies, she said, “We’re an organisation that has close working between our acute and community teams and the skills to be able to share the burden at a time when the NHS as a whole is under a significant strain. The idea of a virtual ward is simple, we work with the ward teams to identify patients who are stable and well enough to be allowed home, and we give them access to equipment that can monitor their recovery as well as the support of regular contact with our specialist teams should they need it.

“Through this close partnership, team working, we’re able to support patients to safely be discharged in to the care of the new service and for them to essentially return home. This has not only meant that patients are more comfortable, it means that we are able to open up capacity for other patients to be cared for, patients who may well be acutely unwell and in desperate need of an inpatient bed, close monitoring and potentially even a medical intervention of procedure.

“Armed with a pulse oximeter, which is a small device that tells you how much oxygen your body is taking in, patients are supported to be discharged home, where they can isolate, recuperate and recover in the comfort and surroundings of their own home. Safe in the knowledge that they have the support of their family and that of trained clinicians. “

In it’s the first few weeks of operation, the service has already seen almost 200 patient being referred for home monitoring, with each referral meaning we’ve not only been able to allow someone home, but also that we’ve been able to release capacity for other patients to receive much needed care.

Referrals to the Monitoring You at Home (MYAH) service can be made on Connect using an electronic referral form. For more information on the service contact the single point of access team on 0121 507 2264 or Kelly Redden-Rowley for more information.