'Staying in a virtual hospital made a difference'

Jennie Smith said she received "extra supervision" and "extra monitoring" like she would in hospital

A patient who stayed in a virtual ward said being able to stay in her own bed and have extra supervision "made the world of difference".

Jennie Smith, a taxi-driver from Lowestoft was referred to the online ward by her GP to help manage issues with her chest and immune problems.

The NHS Community Virtual Ward service for Norfolk and Waveney, which allowed patients to be monitored at home instead of in hospital, has just celebrated the admission of its 500th patient.

Ms Smith said: "Rest is key to recovery really and we all know that you don't get much rest in hospital, you don't get much peace and quiet."

Whilst at home, patients note their own health stats, such as blood pressure, and upload the data onto an app.

Ms Smith said staying at home "just made everything that much easier”.

"It just meant that I got that extra supervision, that extra monitoring that you would get in hospital, but I was able to stay at home. It made the world of difference to me," she said.

• Listen: 'Norfolk’s ‘virtual ward’ made world of difference'

After looking at the data, medical staff can call or visit virtual ward patients if needed.

'We've seen some really sick patients'

Andrew Karrouze, from Norfolk Community Health and Care, the NHS service which runs the virtual ward, said: "We need to carry on developing and increasing our capacity, increasing our staffing... we will be able to see more and more patients.

"We've seen some really sick patients on our books especially [in] December, [it] was a really difficult month for patients with respiratory disease."

He said there were "lots of patients" who could be treated at home rather than in hospital.

"With our 500 patients we are pretty confident that we've done a very good job at keeping people at home and potentially improve the outcome compared to if they had gone into hospital."