Patients on IV drips treated in their home
Radical move to ease beds crisis
PATIENTS will be treated at home on intravenous drips in a desperate attempt to beat a looming winter crisis in the NHS.
Seriously ill patients, who would normally be sent to hospital, will be kept at home on drips to ease pressure on wards.
The scheme is designed to avoid an influx of patients piling pressure on hospitals this winter. Last winter, hospitals cancelled hundreds of operations and patients endured long waits in A&E units.
Now NHS bosses have unveiled radical ‘admissions avoidance’ plans that will see patients kept in their own homes and treated by doctors, nurses and carers ‘just like they do in a hospital’.
The proposals include setting up so-called ‘virtual wards’ in which patients with falls, infections and heart conditions are treated at home.
Teams of doctors and nurses will visit them and patients with lung problems who suffer infections will even be treated with intravenous medications such as antibiotics in their own homes. This will include syringes and cannulas or even drips.
Virtual wards will also involve patients suffering from bronchiecstasis, a condition that causes coughing and breathlessness, being treated at home. Such patients can sometimes spend weeks in hospital on antibiotics.
The project has been launched by one of Scotland’s biggest health boards, NHS Lothian, which suffered huge winter pressures last year, with 600 cancelled operations.
It has now almost doubled its winter spend to £6.4 million this year in an effort to avert a repeat of the crisis. Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian’s chief officer, outlined the prosposal in the NHS Lothian Winter Plan 2015-16.
As well as opening extra beds for the winter, the board is providing 20 ‘virtual beds’ either in patients’ homes or care homes.
The paper states: ‘This will be able to identify suitable patients ahead of admission to hospitals, and secondly will also be able to “pull” patients out of unnecessary hospital stays.’
It adds: ‘Within the respiratory pathway, we will develop at-home IV antibiotic delivery within Edinburgh to bronchiectasis patients. Both are excellent models which will promote admissions avoidance and that support primary care delivery.’
Dr Jean Turner, of the Scotland Patients Association said: ‘If a patient needs to be in hospital, they need to be in hospital. A virtual ward in their own home is not good enough. This will make inexperienced GPs scared to refer patients to hospital.
‘While there may be some benefits to treating some patients in their own homes, it is dependent on having enough doctors and district nurses in the community – which is sadly not the case.’