A programme designed to provide hospital-level care in homely settings is now treating more than 265 patients a day across the country. 

Nearly 3,500 patients were managed at a Hospital at Home service between April and June 2023 – a 34% increase compared to the year before.

This comes after an additional £3.6m was made available to the services – which offer a safe, patient-centred alternative to acute hospital admission – in May this year, to support an additional 150 ‘virtual beds’ across the country.

Around 340 beds are now available across 27 of Scotland’s 31 health and social care partnerships, including in some of the country’s most remote and rural areas.

People’s own homes now collectively make-up the largest ward for older people in the whole of Scotland, with Hospital at Home services managing nearly 300 patients on its busiest days.

The next largest geriatric ward – based at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow – sees around 252 patients a day on average.

The very first Hospital at Home service for children in Scotland has also been established in NHS Lanarkshire.

Lanarkshire was the first region in Scotland to offer a Hospital at Home service, serving predominantly older adults with a cognitive impairment, multi morbidities or a functional impairment.

Services have since expanded quickly across Scotland, backed by consistent Scottish government funding, especially during the pandemic where risks to frail or more vulnerable patients staying in hospital were magnetised.

Evaluations confirm that Hospital at Home can avoid unnecessary disruption to older adults, reduce pressure on hospitals by avoiding admissions and accelerating discharge, and save the NHS money.

University of Aberdeen researchers say extending the service to children – which has been done successfully in some English towns – could work to slow an “unsustainable” tide of paediatric hospital admissions.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), which leads the Hospital at Home expansion programme, says it will continue to support NHS boards and health and social care partnerships set up and expand services.

Read more: How Hospital At Home is changing patient outcomes; Insight: Taking hospital to people’s homes

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