Lived experience study Hospital at Home
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A phenomenological study to explore the lived experiences of patients, carers and healthcare staff of a Hospital at Home (Virtual Wards) service
IRAS ID
338931
Contact name
Guy Tucker
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Northumbria University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
This study would build on the implementation of the Hospital @ Home service (Virtual Wards) project aimed at supporting patients on long term health conditions pathways. The term Virtual Ward has been used to describe home support services aimed at reducing the number of preventable hospital admissions or to provide care that would have traditionally been delivered in a hospital setting. This might include the use of digital technologies to achieve this. Two initial community pathways, respiratory and frailty have been identified by South Tyneside and Sunderland Foundation Trust for their Virtual Ward service. The community-based service has been named Hospital at Home, as this was a term familiar to patients/ users of the service, during the Covid 19 pandemic, to manage and support patients with Covid 19 symptoms who had COPD. These two new pathways reflect the National priorities for England and NHS England`s drive to increase the number of Virtual Wards in the community setting. There exists research and academic literature on the benefits and applying different ways of structuring Virtual Wards in healthcare. There is a lack of literature on the lived experiences of those individuals who may access such services or those healthcare staff working within the healthcare team providing such services. A research study investigating the human experiences could increase the body of professional nursing and healthcare knowledge.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/NW/0280
Date of REC Opinion
14 Oct 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion