Hundreds of patients who would otherwise be in hospital are to be sent home or told to stay at home and will instead be given a box of gadgets and medical equipment to use on themselves.
The initiative is part of an £18 million investment from health chiefs in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire that aims to free up beds in the city’s two main hospitals and at Weston General, and is part of a wider Government scheme nationally to have people who are in hospital home, or not admit people to hospital but keep them at home and monitor them there.
Trials of the technology have been deemed a success and now the ‘virtual ward’ scheme is being expanded and rolled out to hundreds of patients in the region, with up to 165 people in the 'hospital at home' scheme at any one time.
