Today, leading home-healthcare provider Cera announces its commitment to delivering five million care visits this winter, which is forecasted to save the NHS £100 million and reduce hospital waiting times.
In a recent government roundtable, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and healthcare leaders met to discuss upcoming winter challenges faced by the NHS, with capacity pressures and waiting lists exacerbated by almost 13,000 people a day in hospital who do not meet the criteria to reside.
A key issue faced by the NHS concerns the discharging of patients and its plans to ensure more people receive more effective community care to prevent hospitalisation. Virtual wards, launched by the NHS in January 2023, form part of the Government’s plans for more people to receive tailored medical support at home.
Cera pledges to deliver five million home care visits this winter to ensure a large proportion of these patients are kept safe and well at home via its first-of-a-kind AI-powered care model that reduces hospitalisations.
During a visit from Cera’s team of carers and nurses, a patient’s symptoms and health data are collected via the Cera App, which AI uses to predict deterioration in conditions 30x faster than traditional methods and can anticipate up to 80% of hospitalisations seven days in advance.
This machine learning triggers earlier health interventions to prevent people from becoming unwell. It has been shown to reduce hospitalisation rates by an unprecedented 52%, keeping more beds free across the NHS for people who really need them.
As Europe’s largest provider of digital-first home healthcare, Cera is already equivalent in capacity to 50 NHS hospitals, working with numerous NHS Integrated Care Systems and Local Authorities nationwide to deliver care, nursing and telehealth services in patients own homes.
Dr Ben Maruthappu MBE, Founder & CEO of Cera, comments: “With greater focus now being placed on the delivery of effective care at home, it’s clear that increasing demands on the NHS are spurring on an important transition towards digital-led and AI-enabled solutions. Discharging patients from hospitals and into social care settings is one of the country’s greatest healthcare priorities.
Cera commits to delivering five million care visits this winter to help keep more patients out of hospital and relieve both capacity and financial pressures on the NHS. Our care solution, driven by a combination of AI and data analytics, helps frontline staff do more with less and keeps patients safely at home through predictive technology. Moving patient care from hospital to home, where appropriate, is one of the most effective ways to reduce the burden on our already-overstretched healthcare services that are facing increasing budget cuts.