South West-born patient video library launched across England
NHS clinicians, patients and carers across England are set to benefit from a digital innovation originating in Devon and supported by the South West Academic Health Science Network (SW AHSN).
The patient video library, developed by Devon-based enterprise Health and Care Innovations (HCI) in partnership with Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, has agreed a six-month licence with NHSX, the unit driving digital transformation across health and care.
Patients are increasingly taking an interest in managing their health conditions whilst feeling empowered to self-care. Recently, social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has meant health and care teams have had to implement and optimise technologies to enable remote support for patients.
HCI produce the largest collection of videos in the health and care sector in the UK. The videos provide a practical and easy-to-digest digital alternative to written information that can be delivered remotely by NHS clinicians and accessed by patients and carers, supporting them to self-manage conditions while reducing demand for front line services and increasing the capacity of staff.
The new NHSX licence makes around 600 videos available to all health and care settings in England to support clinicians in NHS trusts (acute hospitals, community and mental health), clinical commissioning groups, primary care and other health care organisations across the country.
With support from the SW AHSN via Digital Health Accelerator South West, HCI’s videos are already available across the South West health and care system, including in general practice and acute hospitals with the aim of improving the patient experience and reducing demand for consultations whilst saving clinicians’ time. At Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, a study showed that use of the videos in physiotherapy, cardiology, podiatry, maternity and gastroenterology services over a year had resulted in 6,598 fewer appointments, equivalent to 4,497 hours of clinicians’ time.
The SW AHSN is continuing to support health and care organisations in the South West to adopt HCI’s videos among other digital care pathways, to enable them to continue delivering patient care in challenging operating environments.
Dr Stuart Monk, the SW AHSN’s Associate Director for Delivery, said: “We are delighted to see the success of a South West-born innovation that we have watched flourish over the last five years. Enabling patient care via digital pathways will play a key role in helping health and care teams to manage the response to COVID-19. We look forward to providing ongoing support to HCI and our NHS partners in their ambitions to optimise digital care pathways.”
The SW AHSN is continuing to support HCI through an ongoing evaluation by the York Health Economics Consortium.
You can access the national library at www.healthandcarevideos.uk.
Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust also have a library of hundreds of videos featuring localised advice. View the library at videos.torbayandsouthdevon.nhs.uk
