Like a hand, always on my shoulder

NHS Teams?It was really great to hear the amazing results of NHS teams from Imperial, Airedale and London North West, all of whom have received support from “Supporting People at Home” through our regional scale programme. They are all achieving rates of around 60% emergency admission reduction in their heart failure and COPD groups which is so significant.?Dr Carla Plymen presented for Imperial and described the reduction in emergency attendances and admissions in the cohort of 73 patients, in just 12 weeks the impact of this was to release ￡400,000 worth of clinical time for other patients. Trish Winn told a similar story of benefits from the London North West work, with again patient satisfaction being extremely high. Terrific too to catch up with the Wolverhampton and Sunderland teams who continue to do great work in this area and hear the real progress of hospital at home and virtual wards across England.

Good learning too?from other countries - Dr Martijn van der Hoogen, a nephrologist from the Netherlands demonstrated why Home Monitoring is so beneficial to people post kidney transplant and made me think that should be the default here in the UK too, after any type of organ transplant given the intensity of the monitoring. He showed a great video of a man who had become blind due to his kidney disease where using the app via voice at home he was hugely liberated from regular, stressful hospital visits, and one of its biggest fans.

It’s for the fantastic team! - Emil Elias

Award?It was great to see Emil Elias advanced nurse practitioner in cardiology and virtual ward enthusiast at North West London Hospitals pick up the conference award - another proud moment for team NHS!

Visit to UMC? This morning we visited University Medical Center Utrecht and its Health Hub which is interestingly staffed mainly by 4th and 5th year medical students as well as some nursing students who call patients at home and review continuous monitoring data - currently from inpatients ahead of going live with sensors at home in January.

The students find the work enjoyable and are supervised by clinical staff and it prepares them well for the digital health they will deliver once qualified. In fact they have a waiting list of staff waiting to join the Hub. They have other compelling home care models including Baby@Home for premature neonates who are able to leave hospital much earlier and are thriving and weight gaining well at home, rheumatology - polyneuropathy - and gestational diabetes home support.?

What a thoughtful welcome!

It really was both valuable and inspiring to learn from colleagues across the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, England and other countries as we aim to accelerate together the offer of care at home.