Black and ethnic minority people underrepresented in virtual wards

An NHS England analysis of the effectiveness of virtual wards has found that black and ethnic minority people are underrepresented in patient cohorts.

The evaluation, published on 16 May 2024, comes as NHS England announces plans to increase access to virtual wards, to cut avoidable hospital admissions and reduce emergency department (ED) waiting times.

NHS England South East Region commissioned the analysis, carried out by the consultancy PPL, which examined 29 virtual ward pathways in the south east, equating to 49% of the region’s overall capacity at the time.

The report calls for “targeted research to understand the barriers to access”, noting that black and minority ethnic people are “consistently underrepresented in virtual ward patient cohorts”.

It adds that there are “significant gaps in ethnicity data recorded in patient level data”.

The report says that challenges in virtual ward service access and representation “stem from insufficient ethnicity data capture, language and cultural barriers, and a misalignment between referral demographics and geographic profiles”.

In some areas, the report says that virtual ward outreach activities to engage black and minority ethnic communities have been planned to educate and raise the profile of virtual ward services.

“Actively reaching out to and engaging with black and minority ethnic communities through cultural gatherings and community-specific health discussions has shown promise in improving awareness and uptake of the service,” it says.

Commenting on the report, Jabeer Butt, chief executive of the Race Equality Foundation told Digital Health News: “With the rise in virtual wards, this evidence is worrying.

“Both the lower use of virtual wards with people of black, Asian and minoritised ethnic backgrounds, as well as the continuing failure to record ethnicity”.

He added: “Unfortunately, this comes on top of evidence of comparatively poorer access to health care as well as poorer experiences, so the possibility that innovations are not involving communities that are already experiencing discrimination should worry everyone.

“Action needs to be taken to improve access and to ensure we can better demonstrate that virtual wards are benefiting all communities”.

An NHS England spokesperson told Digital Health News: “The ‘NHS Long Term Plan’ commits to a focus on health inequalities, and ensuring equal access is a requirement of the virtual wards programme.

“One of the core reasons we commission evaluations like this is to learn more about possible gaps that need to be addressed, and we continue to actively work with partners across the health and care system to improve access and tackle disparities.”

They added: “Our world-leading virtual wards programme has allowed hundreds of thousands of patients to receive hospital-level care from the comfort of their homes, and as this initiative has been scaled up across the country, we have been able to widen the scope of them to include a range of health conditions including frailty, heart failure, and acute respiratory infections”.