Patient experience of a palliative care virtual ward. Version 1.0.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The provision of a palliative care virtual ward: a qualitative study of patient experience.
IRAS ID
336053
Contact name
Mirella Longo
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 26 days
Research summary
This study aims to understand the patient experience of a palliative care virtual ward.
There is increasing evidence that virtual wards are a safe and efficient alternative to hospital care. Virtual wards allow patients to receive their required care at home, whilst presenting an opportunity to manage the imbalance between demand and capacity for secondary care beds with an alternative to admission or facilitation of early discharge.
NHS England and Improvement have asked all Integrated Care Systems to extend or introduce virtual ward models, with a national ambition of 40 to 50 virtual ward ‘beds’ per 100,000 population by year end 2023.
An understanding of patient experience is essential to service adaption and development. A comprehensive literature review has revealed that no research study has been published evaluating the patient experience of a palliative care virtual ward. New information gathered in this study will support development of new and existing virtual ward services on a local, national and international level.
The study site is Thames Hospice, a palliative care provider serving Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire. All patients admitted onto the Thames Hospice virtual ward for symptom control and discharged back to standard community palliative care follow-up who can consent and feel well enough to engage in the interview process are eligible to participate.
The study will involve a single semi-structured interview with between 6 and 15 participants between 1st March and 30th November 2024. Interviews will take place in the participants place of choice and will last between thirty minutes to one hour. Key themes of the patient experience will be identified and presented in the form of a dissertation and publication in relevant journals.
The study is being undertaken by a student of the Cardiff University MSc in Palliative Medicine for Healthcare Professionals.REC name
London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/1492
Date of REC Opinion
14 Feb 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion