Leading telemedicine provider Consultant Connect helped 150,000 elderly and frail patients across the UK avoid unnecessary hospital queues in 2023.
Consultant Connect rapidly connects primary care clinicians to specialists in departments such as cardiology and frailty for their expert advice. The tech helps to connect them in minutes, where it would otherwise take hours through a hospital switchboard.
The tech in numbers
- 200,000 calls regarding elderly patients were made using Consultant Connect’s technology in 2023, which led to over 150,000 elderly and frail patients avoiding an unnecessary hospital admission
- More than 5,000 of these calls were made using the dedicated acute frailty line for elderly patients with especially complex needs. Of these, more than 3,000 patients were treated without being admitted to hospital.
There are 20 NHS Trusts in the UK that have benefited from Consultant Connect’s support on its dedicated frailty pathways.
Dr Laura Godfrey, GP Lead for Weymouth and Portland Frailty Team, said: “It’s not always clear which frail and elderly patients need to go to hospital, often they have complex needs that change the care they require. In these cases, it’s a real benefit to have expert advice on if they are best being treated at home or if they need further investigation.
“I had a patient who had been admitted to hospital a couple of times and was recently discharged. I felt she had an underlying and deep-seated infection, which can be especially dangerous for elderly patients. The patient hadn’t been scanned whilst in hospital, and I felt that a scan without an admission would support my management of her. I called the Acute Frailty line via Consultant Connect, and the consultant geriatrician arranged the scan for the patient at an outpatient clinic without her needing to attend any appointments beforehand.
“I would have had to admit her to hospital if I didn’t have access to the expert’s advice. As a result, the patient was able to stay at home and avoid an unnecessary admission, improving her care journey.”
Jonathan Patrick, CEO of Consultant Connect, said: “Clinicians have an incredibly important job to do and our job is to make sure that they don’t waste time trying to find the right specialist to advise on their patient. Our tech improves communication between primary and secondary care with calls answered on average in 25 seconds. This means more patients get the care they need sooner, with many avoiding lengthy hospital waiting lists.”