Welsh Government: Sparking Innovation through Technology, Digital and Transformation
Delivering care closer to home with video consultations 45,000 miles of travel and 1,400 hours of travel time. It has also reduced CO2 emissions by more than eleven tons. Delivering care closer to home through the use of technology has always been a key part of A Healthier Wales.
A pilot is now taking place to extend the services to dentistry, optometry and community pharmacies who have all experienced an increase in demand for additional services, including people seeking advice for common ailments. The introduction of social distancing has also meant that some services have not taken place and video consultation will help support the reintroduction of these services.
During the COVID-19 response, the use of technology has been accelerated across Wales, allowing people to continue to access healthcare advice and services from their homes. This includes a national roll-out of video consultations across the primary, secondary and community care systems.
The new systems are supporting key services including GPs, Community Nurses, Community Mental Health Teams, Health Visitors, Community Midwives, Outpatients and Diabetes clinics to maintain a visual link with their patients. This has helped to reduce the spread of COVID-19, with fewer people attending hospitals or clinics, reducing the risk of exposure to both patients and clinicians. It also allows patients in self-isolation to maintain contact with medical professionals. Visit: www.agorip.com
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To date more than 6,700 GP video consultations, 10,200 secondary care consultations and 380 community care video consultations have been held. Feedback from patients who have received virtual care has been very supportive of the system, with 97 per cent of patients rating this new way or working as excellent, really good or good. Clinicians using the service agree, with 85 per cent (TEC Cymru) giving an excellent, really good or good rating. Evaluation of the service has shown that the video consultation has saved
Video consultation will enable community pharmacies to provide advice for common ailments and emergency contraception services. It will allow pharmacies to conduct Discharge Medicines Review and give support for people who want to stop smoking. In dentistry, video consultations will support pre-visit consultations to get an understanding of the patient’s medical history and allow a clinical assessment. Optometry will benefit from video consultation by using it for pre-visit check-ups on a patient’s medical history. It will also support triage to examine a person’s eyelids. Video consultation can also be used to allow a specialist ophthalmologist to join the consultation call.
