Enabling remote and collaborative care

COVID Oximetry@home  

We mobilised a programme to provide data and digital capabilities for national implementation of remote monitoring of patient’s oxygen levels in their homes, including residential and care homes, following successful evaluation of the pilot project. The national programme is led by NHS England with local implementation led by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGS).

The initial phase has focused on delivering core digital capabilities for the programme, including:

• new NHS Pathways guidance to triage coronavirus (COVID-19) patients at home (17 November 2020)
• 9 new SNOMED CT clinical codes to enable Oximetry @home activity to be recorded (30 November 2020)
• service to identify and communicate prioritised patients to local providers (patients with a positive test who are over 65 and/or clinically extremely vulnerable) - provision to early adopters will commence by 18 December 2020

In parallel, we are developing data collections to support progress monitoring and ongoing evaluation (target delivery January 2021) and progressing detailed work (including user research) to define and prioritise additional requirements. 

Enabling remote working for primary care

We have deployed the remote clinical desktop (RCD) to a cohort of early adopters. As of 10 December 2020, 332 end users have expressed an interest in using RCD/VDI with the solution being actively used by 298 primary care staff from 24 CCGs.

Initial feedback has been positive with RCD being used where practices have had to close as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19) and for enabling primary care staff to continue working while they are shielding or self-isolating.

The solution currently allows up to 500 primary care staff to work remotely on their own devices and discussions are underway to scale to 1,000 users. Requests to trial the solution should be directed to [email protected].