Virtual wards are not the silver bullet for NHS woes, it will be a long road to fixing the crisis

Initiatives such as the one that saw more than 8,500 patients in England being treated on virtual wards in the run-up to Christmas are to be encouraged. These so-called hospitals at home have the potential to alleviate pressure on capacity.

Virtual wards allow patients to receive care in their own homes, with clinical staff using apps or wearable technology to monitor them remotely. Teams can also prescribe medications, order blood tests and administer fluids intravenously if needed.

However, they come with a caveat from experts, who say that they are not the “silver bullet to solve the crisis in health and social care”.

As Wendy Preston, the head of nursing practice at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), points out, there is still a need for patients to see nurses. Yet nursing and social care continues to suffer from understaffing.

It would be too simplistic to suggest that better funding will cure the NHS of its ills. The health service is at a critical point where it will require strong political leadership to ensure that there is a sustainable future for it.

A failure to fix underlying issues blighting the NHS will only see patients continue to suffer. As analysis by the Liberal Democrats shows, a record 420,000 patients had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E last year. An aging population will only add to the strain on the NHS.