Mary Holden

Well, I needed to have a diagnostic procedure done quite quickly and my oncologist didn't have a bed available on the ward to admit me.

And she told me about the virtual ward.

OK, well, once I went through the admission phase, which is an administrative phase, I went home with my kit, which is basically an iPad and various pieces of monitoring equipment so that my temperature could be monitored for spikes, my blood pressure could be monitored, my heart rate could be monitored.

And I was asked to submit...

the figures for the checks that I took morning and evening through this iPad, and they would be analysed by the virtual ward team.

And if anything was amiss, they'd get in touch with me.

And the blissful thing about it in my case was, one, I didn't have any spikes of anything.

But had I had a spike,

uh say of my temperature and i needed admitting to an actual bed i would be admitted but bypassing the ed which was the most marvelous benefit because you know for somebody whose immune system is compromised sitting in an ed you're liable to pick up all sorts of bugs

And the other thing for somebody like me, where I have cancer that has spread to my bones, I would also be in bed and be losing muscle.

Everybody kept me informed and there was clearly continuity within the various sections of the hospital along the way.

Gosh, no, absolutely not.

No, it's just it's working smarter rather than working harder.