Supporting care with remote monitoring

The NHS continues to work on delivering more care to people in their homes.

Across England, more and more people are being supported from the comfort of their own home through technology-enabled remote monitoring.

NHS England has worked with the 7 NHS regions in England to scale digitally enabled healthcare at home for people with long term conditions. This includes both physical and mental health and for people for whom home is a care home.

Between November 2020 and January 2023, over 487,000 people have been supported at home with digital home care and remote monitoring technologies through national funding as part of the Regional Scale Programme.

Scale and spread have been accelerated by local health and care teams sharing their knowledge and experience. Find out more about how the Innovation Collaborative for digital health has enabled shared learning and access supporting resources.

Evaluation suggests that during the pandemic, the Regional Scale Programme was key in enabling effective adoption of new care pathways supported by technologies that enable remote monitoring, across participating regions and local health and care teams.

Case studies

You can see an overview of some of the regional projects using technology the support people at home below.

Cross-regional

• This case study explores experiences, challenges and achievements involved with enabling and scaling MSK and gastroenterology projects, supported by the NHS England Adoption Fund in 2021/22, through a local, regional, and national lens. The legacy of this work means a rising number of people are being supported to safely manage their condition from the comfort of home, while local and national decision-makers have a new level of evidence-based insight to help them optimise services.

North East and Yorkshire

• Thousands of people living with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) across Bradford District and Craven are managing their condition from the comfort of their own home, with life-changing assurance and support from a nurse-led digital service.
• As part of a wider digital programme to transform cardiology outpatient services across the region, this project uses new mobile heart monitoring technology to track the impact of antipsychotic drugs on a patient’s cardiac health in their own home.

East of England

• Care home residents in Mid and South Essex are being supported at home and protected against the development of serious health infections by staff using technology-enabled remote monitoring. 
• Health teams across Norfolk and Waveney implemented a new digital referral process to transform dermatology care using a camera function on a smartphone.

London

• A shared digital vision between clinical and non-clinical professionals across two cardiac networks and seven hospitals in London has helped transform the pre and post operative experience for hundreds of patients.
• Supporting care home residents across London through remote monitoring technologies to help recognise the deterioration of residents’ health and improve the care available.

Midlands

• Care and nursing homes in the Black Country are using digital tools to protect the health and wellbeing of frail and vulnerable residents.
• The expansion of technology-enabled home care and virtual wards through Leicestershire and Rutland providers working in partnership has supported an increasing number of patients to access support from the comfort of home.
• NHS funding has supported the rapid expansion of remote monitoring technologies for heart failure, COPD and COVID-19 patients across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

North West

• Digital, data and people are combining in Greater Manchester to enrich lives and reduce inequalities to bring holistic services within reach for people with severe mental illness.
• Across Cheshire and Merseyside, the pandemic triggered an expansion of digital models to care for people with COVID-19. Drawing on an established telehealth “hub” model set up in Liverpool, COVID Oximetry at Home services have expanded across the area. Similar work across Lancashire and South Cumbria is supporting patients with remote monitoring of symptoms using the digitally-enabled service.
• Engagement, insight, evidence and original thinking in Liverpool has paved the way for the rapid expansion of a remote monitoring hub that now supports thousands of people in nine localities across Cheshire and Merseyside. This case study builds on previous learning.

South East

• People with long term conditions in Surrey Heartlands are being supported to manage their health and wellbeing at home with greater choice, knowledge, and confidence thanks to a multi-skilled collaboration of professionals enabled through digital innovation.
• This case study showcases the successful use of digital remote patient monitoring to identify deterioration of patients with silent hypoxia in response to COVID-19. The project enhanced the digital capabilities of the COVID Oximetry at Home service to identify and prioritise patients who need urgent treatment.

South West

• People in Dorset are being supported to take control of their long-term conditions from the comfort of home thanks to a step-change digital programme expanding across the region. NHS Dorset’s Digital Access to Services at Home (D@SH) programme is shaped by a multidisciplinary team of clinical and non-clinical specialists, thinking differently about how to best care for and empower communities.  
• This project in this study is led by an integrated team spanning primary, secondary and community care. It aims to use remote monitoring and digital tools to improve outcomes, reduce health inequalities, transform working cultures and build closer relationships to improve health and wellbeing for people with learning disabilities.

To download the full case studies, and access more studies and resources, join the Innovation Collaborative for digital health.

Videos

You can watch a selection of videos sharing the stories of patients, service users, carers and staff below.

Listen to our podcast

Our Innovation Collaborative podcast series highlights how innovative technologies are being used to provide safe, personalised and more convenient care.

Episodes are hosted by former chief digital nurse Anne Cooper and former BBC TV and radio correspondent Nigel Thompson, where they invite guests to share their experiences with listeners.

Join the National Innovation Collaborative to find out more

Existing members of the FutureNHS platform can join the Innovation Collaborative for digital health workspace.

Alternatively, please email innovationcollaborative-manager@future.nhs.uk to request to join.

You can also join in the conversation by tweeting using the hashtag #NHSInnovCollab.