We're just going to see a patient to get her consent and see if
she wants to come to the virtual ward before her operation in a couple of days.
Knock. Knock.
Hello Hannah, my name is Claire, I'm one of the nurses on the virtual ward.
I've just come to give you some kit and explain what the virtual ward actually is.
The kit in here will monitor your heart rate, your oxygen levels, your respiratory
rate, all that kind of thing, and your skin temperature as well.
So we can make sure that you're not
becoming more unwell before you come in for your operation.
OK, now there’s a blood pressure kit in here as well.
When you open it all up, there's a tablet and you just turn the tablet on.
That tablet serves as a couple of different things
it’s, it'll help you set the kit up to get it all ready for monitoring.
But it also serves as communication tool, so you can get through to us.
There's a button on there that says, ‘I'm not feeling very well.’
You ring that and we'll answer very quickly.
Alright.
Thank you very much for that. Cheers for that.
Yeah, it’s really weird, I've never heard of these virtual things until today.
It's quite interesting.
And this. Taking a pack home.
Level one.
My name is Claire Beard.
I work at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
I'm the ward manager of the virtual ward team.
So what are we going to do? Mostly.
I'm going to show you the kit. Yeah.
And then? So this is what the patients go home with.
This is the basic kit that the patients go home with.
Yeah.
So we'll show you what it is, how it works.
Is the room free?
The first thing they do is turn the tablet on and then the tablet.
When it's, when it is on, will give them a couple of different options it will say
‘Set up’ or ‘Calibrate’.
They press ‘Set up’ and it will step by step by step,
tell them exactly how to set the kit up.
But we're also always on the end of the phone.
They plug in the modem and that just plugs straight into the mains.
Doesn't need internet connection.
It gets its own internet connection. So if someone doesn't have internet at home.
That's fine. Yeah, you really can still do it.
All the patient has to do is line up the arrows,
click it in
and then pop it on.
And that will give us the heart rate, oxygen levels, respiratory rate,
skin temperature and movement, and we get the information every three minutes.
So with a lot of our patients,
we see them deteriorate before they feel ill.
So their heart rate will go up or their skin temperature will go up.
The way the virtual ward works really is two way communication.
We can always get hold of them through the tablet.
But in the same way, if they wake up at 03:00 in the morning
and aren't feeling very well, they can get hold of us as well.
So your respiratory rate is fine, your oxygen levels are perfect.
They’re 96%, so absolutely perfect, they can't get much better than that, no.
Blood pressure a bit earlier today, didn't you?
Yeah.
So if you can do another blood pressure for us a little bit later on this evening.
Just so that we've got another blood pressure on you.
Any questions, or are you happy with all of that? No. I’m fine.
Listening to heavy metal.
Cover versions of Zombie.
Oh, OK. Cranberries, Zombie? No?
Yeah. It’s done by Bad Wolves.
Oh, OK. I'm going to write that down and listen to that. Find that on Spotify,
a bit later on. I'll be back around tomorrow.
So I'll catch up with you again tomorrow.
Alright? OK.
Bye, bye.
With patients, that's kind of what they want,
is they want somebody to talk to and to listen to them and to...
So there's lots of different things that you can do, if you're talking to patients.
And they find it,
because it is very much one to one and we're not being pulled away from,
I mean we still get a lot of phone calls and stuff,
but you've not somebody else in the next bed calling you, or...
You've not got the drug rounds to sort out.
You've not got so many different pulls.
I felt violently sick
and woke up and said to my wife, “Help, I need your help now.”
The next thing I knew was that
there was the ambulance crew there. Basically, ended up in hospital.
It wasn't great because you weren't allowed visitors.
So it was very frustrating because I'm quite a sociable person.
And the thing I had there was my mobile phone.
The bed was dreadfully uncomfortable.
The noise was constant. Monitors beeping.
You had to take the monitor off to go to the toilet.
It was, I think it was more depressing than anything.
The mental aspect of it was very hard to deal with.
So that's why I wanted to come home so I could be in a safer,
I felt, in a safer environment.
So that's where they offered us the situation of coming home
on the virtual ward. I thought, what a brilliant idea.
You've got the best of both worlds.
And you're not, you don't lose your place in the system.
So, although I'm out, I'm still technically in.
They gave me the iPad, which is obviously...
It's got like to do lists on it, check my heart rate and all this sort of stuff.
Blood pressure monitor and a
monitor on my arm.
There is actually a button on the tablet,
which we accidentally caught at 02:00 in the morning,
and about ten minutes later we had a phone call from the hospital,
saying, “Do we need to send an ambulance?”
And I was like going, “Uh, no.”
One of the pieces of equipment and it monitors
your heart rate, your temperature and your oxygen levels.
So it's quite good.
I got to take this off.
And then you have to put this back on, which is your blood pressure monitor.
Preparing for a blood pressure reading.
163, over 98.
Hello.
Good morning.
How was your night?
Yeah, it was good.
Not bad. Slept well.
Your blood pressure is still... High.
Yeah.
Are you feeling any symptoms from your blood pressure being elevated at all?
Not really. No, no.
If you could do a repeat, a repeat blood pressure for me, around lunchtime. I would appreciate it.
I've got a cat on my lap now.
Oh, have you? Yeah.
I'll show you, shall I?
Can I see? Yeah do. Yeah do. Show me the cat.
You've got really good staff.
You know, if you have staff that are just doing it for the money
I don't think it's the same.
The impression I get is they're doing it because they care.
If that makes sense.
I’m Cyril Stiff. I work for the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
as an assistant practitioner for the virtual ward.
One of our patients needs some items from pharmacy.
So we are going down to the pharmacy to pick it up
Hello, could I pick up some medication for
virtual ward, please.
Great.
Thank you very much. Thanks. Bye.
Now we just go down to the main reception.
Cyril from virtual ward.
I'll send it straight away.
When we first started, it wasn't as good, but now it's almost like coggs in a wheel.
We're all linking together, keeping it going.
And then hopefully those coggs will get better and bigger
and everybody else will be working together with other trusts, hopefully.
We've got medication for you
and it's going to Cemetery Road in Dereham right here.
We have, obviously, specific instructions
what we're picking up. Seems to work really well. I feel very proud to be honest.
Yeah, that I could play a part in helping people out.
Hello, good afternoon. I’m from the N and N hospital.
for your medication. Can I just have your name please, sir? Smith.
This is all a big shock to me this.
I didn't even know I’d had a stroke. I had a headache
last Thursday.
My daughter
came home from work on a Friday and said, “Your left side of your face is drooped.”
“We're going to hospital... you’re having a stroke.”
So. That was it.
Rose rang us and said she, Leslie had to have this
when he arrived, when he came. Two nights, last Friday and last Saturday.
Never having been in
hospital before overnight, it's just a big shock.
And they told me about this sometime on Saturday
that I'd be going home to do this virtual ward on the Sunday.
My first reaction was he's coming home.
However he comes home, so long as he comes home,
but obviously that he would be safe. Because in the back of your mind,
you're thinking, well, what if Leslie has another attack or something like that?
Because they, the information going back to the hospital is instant.
That's, that all helps security, the feeling of security.
It takes 30 minutes to charge it up, and I normally do that when he's in the shower.
Yeah.
So no, it's it's it's, it's brilliant.
Yeah, it's very, very, very easy to put on and off.
And if there wasn't anybody here to help Leslie,
you know, I'm sure that someone could do it on their own
because it's remote and we're allowed to be with Leslie and
I can ask questions as well and the family, if they've got any questions.
So it's it’s, it's brilliant.
The hospital knows what you're up to, what's going on with your body 24
hours a day.
There's nothing to worry about.
Just follow the instructions and just do it. I thoroughly recommend it.
Oh, it's great being at home. It's great.
You can't, you can't not want to be at home.
I'm Rose Cary, I’m one of the sisters on the virtual ward
team at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital.
Today we are training up new nurses to join us on the virtual ward
and we've been doing it for the last three days.
We've had quite a lot of interest.
You know, if we've got enough staff to man the service, then the more patients
that we can take on.
It also means that we're expanding sort of our knowledge as well.
We're getting nurses from all different backgrounds, all different specialties,
so it's nice to bring in their knowledge and incorporate it into the team.
First step is to turn on their tablet.
So this is the contents which will be in the box
that the patients are provided with.
So at the moment, you can see
this patient's oxygen levels from this morning
all the way through to now, and this is real time.
So on the screen here, you can see our progress
since we started in February 2021.
So, this January is current, as you can see when we first started
sort of how our, our numbers improved.
And then obviously December being our busiest month. We've had 850 patients
through the service so far and we've saved 5,700 bed days.
So that's very good data so far.
Our patient experience, so we’re above 96%.
Patients really enjoy being on the virtual ward.
We get good feedback from them,
so that has been inputed. So, yeah, very successful and impressive data.
So I'm a registered nurse.
Today we're going to see patient Kenneth Larkins.
We're going to go in, meet them for the first time
and get their observations, some blood work and some wound care.
Good morning. Good morning.
My name's Janae. I'm your nurse.
You must be Kenneth
and you must be Rose.
Nice to meet you both. And you.
How's your foot been feeling?
Well, it's alright.
Yeah, I think it’s, there hasn’t been any pain or anything.
First thing we'll do is we'll take some blood if that's OK with you?
What is this testing for?
So they're going to make sure all the, there's no infection markers
then they'll be checking all your blood counts and they'll be doing this
twice a week in the virtual ward will be keeping up with the blood results.
And, if at any point you need antibiotics, they'll know pretty much right away.
You feel relaxed in your own home, having the same treatment done.
Yes. So,
and you know,
and these nurses are so... I know so skilled. ... so accomplished.
You just feel safe.
I'll leave here with a big ego if you're not careful.
Places that you might have trouble are right in this area.
If it's going to leak, it's probably going to be right here.
So if you do notice it... Will it come up on the machine then?
Yeah, it'll start.
It'll go kind of ‘beep boop’ and it'll tell you.
This was quite terrifying to me because I felt responsible for him.
But as soon as
it started out, or like on the first day, I realised how much help we were getting.
I love this job.
It's the best job I've ever had as a nurse.
Definitely.
People definitely prefer to be in their own home if they can.
They dread going back in the hospital
and we do everything we can to keep them out of the hospital.
I think it's a better experience for me at work.
It's a better experience for them as a patient,
and I think we get
better outcomes with them if they can be at home.
I'm a very nervous type person and I worry,
to the extreme of the bad all the time.
So I was really, really, reassured.
I did find that reassuring and...
So I’m very nervous about hospitals
and medical treatment full stop.
But you know, this has, this has been an eye-opener to me that,
you know - the experience and this kind of care.
It's just given me a lot of comfort. And the benefits
are so high. You can't compare
that to being in a hospital.
The benefits of being at home and being treated.
You know, you just have to recommend it.
From my point of view, I’ve benefited, and I'm sure
other people as well,
have that opportunity to do it, will benefit in the same way.