The Virtual Ward is an Acute Ward which monitors patients who otherwise would require admitting into our hospitals. They receive twice a day video calls, from the Virtual Ward team with patients recording their observations on a free app called LUSCII which is downloaded from the app store on your smart device.
All patients receiving care on in our Virtual Wards are loaned a ‘hospital in a box’ containing medical equipment which enables our teams to monitor patients. Patients are then added to the appropriate pathway dependant on your health condition. Our current pathways for the Virtual Wards include:
- General medical
- Acute respiratory Infection
- COPD
- COVID
- Flu
- Haematology
- Orthopaedic
- General surgical
- Gastroenterology
- Frailty
Each of these pathways have a designated consultant. By being in their own home, our patients are supported to be as independent as possible.
How does the Virtual Ward work?
Patients are supported by our team of nurses in our centralised Virtual Ward monitoring hub, where they monitor and deliver support to patients in their own home for as long as necessary. They support the prevention of avoidable hospital admissions, early detection of issues and prompt reviews.
The Virtual Ward is a 24 hour – 7 days a week service.
What if I need treatments?
If you require treatments, the Virtual Ward team will arrange for our community team Urgent Care Virtual Ward (UCVW) to visit you in your own home. UCVW provides blood tests, IV therapies and wound care for the Virtual Ward patients that have a West Kent GP.
What happens if my GP isn’t in west Kent?
If your GP is outside of West Kent, if you attend one of our hospital sites we can arrange for you to visit our phlebotomy team for blood tests.
What patients are referred to the frailty Virtual Ward?
The Frailty Virtual Ward is supported by the Home Treatment Service (HTS), which is provided by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT), and takes referrals from health professionals including GPs and acute trusts. To be eligible for HTS, patients must be registered with a West Kent GP.
The service provides urgent care at home and nursing/care homes, with the aim of avoiding an admission, and focuses on people aged over 65 with frailty. HTS also sees those over 18 with chronic medical conditions. This is often requested for people with long term conditions or frailty for whom a hospital admission is not in line with their current treatment goals.
Remote episodic short-term care and long-term condition management
The Virtual Ward Hub also offers remote monitoring and long-term condition support for numerous health conditions. Each pathway has its own plan to ensure the appropriate review or follow up. Patients under these pathways are not inpatients of MTW and are referred directly by the specialty teams.Each pathway has condition specific questions for the patients to answer. If a response is abnormal for the patient or condition an alert is raised via the LUSCII App.
What’s the difference between remote episodic short-term care and long-term condition?
- Remote episodic short-term care is for a health-related issue that requires monitoring to support you through the episode. For example, this could be a temporary catheter following a surgical procedure or wound care.
- Long-term condition monitoring is used to monitor diseases or conditions for which there is currently no cure, and which are managed with medications and other treatments. This could be conditions such as COPD, rheumatology, diabetes, neurology and many more.
More information
You can find out more and further support in place by reading the Virtual Wards patient information leaflet.