DHU has been working with Family Health colleagues at Chesterfield Royal Hospital to introduce its Community Virtual Ward (CVW) to their youngest patients.
The CVW can look after up to 50 patients in their own homes whose condition is serious enough to need urgent care monitoring, but who don’t need a hospital admission. They provide monitoring equipment to the patient and their family who can then send blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels and other key observations to the CVW clinical team who will provide care and advice accordingly.
Hospital level care in the their own home
From December 2025, five of those spaces have been made available to paediatric patients for the first time, taking referrals from the Chesterfield Royal Hospital. So far, eight young patients have received hospital-level care from the team in the comfort of their own home, keeping them in a familiar environment suitable for their care needs.
Neil Jones is a DHU Advanced Practitioner with the CVW and explained: “For some children, hospital isn’t always the right environment for them to continue their recovery and struggle with being in an unfamiliar environment. If their condition allows, we can ensure they are monitored in the right way and given any treatment they might need.
“Working closely with CRH is important as it means that we will know everything about the patient when referred and if the child’s condition deteriorates, the mechanisms are there to refer them back to Nightingale Ward. If they continue to improve, we can monitor and discharge them when their recovery is complete.”
“A landmark achievement”
Emma Wardale is DHU’s Virtual Ward Clinical Lead, she added: “This expansion of the CVW to support children and young people is a landmark achievement and we are very excited to work alongside colleagues from Family Health, including CAMHS and General Paediatrics. To launch this care service is testament to the flexibility of offering virtual care in the patient’s home environment and a great example of how collaborative working can help to achieve the NHS ten-year plan ambition of providing more care at home or in a community setting.
“All of this will be done with the direct involvement of the child’s parents and family. We have been working in this way for more than five years and have looked after more than 4,000 patients remotely. This is a tremendous expansion of the service and we look forward to working with our partners, patients and their families to provide the best care in the right place for our young patients.”
Tracy Barker, Lead Nurse for Family Care at Chesterfield Royal Hospital added:” This is a huge step forward for us – and I am very proud and delighted to see this happen. It will make a huge difference to the care we can give to our youngest patients who often find a hospital environment scary and unsettling. The virtual ward will remove some of the stress and anxiety for both our patients and their families. Thank you to everyone who helped us make this a reality.”