Ms Rachel Kenna:

As I said, in the first place there are three different models of virtual care being delivered. I turn first to the acute virtual ward, and to the Chair's point about our ability to interact with patients. The care is the same as if the patient were an inpatient in a ward. They are constantly monitored. It is consultant-led and clinician-delivered care across the range and variety of respiratory and cardiac patients at the moment. We are hoping to expand the number of conditions we can look after.

I will give an example of the early impact of that. As Mr. McCallion said, each ward has a capacity of 23 beds. Since they started in July, we have seen 163 patients looked after at home who would previously have been in hospital, saving approximately 800 bed days across the two sites. They have significant potential to look after people in their own homes. The community model is slightly different. It is focused on integrated care and gives great visibility to what Sláintecare has always intended. ICPOP teams and the ECC programme are integrated in this one. It operates on 80 virtual beds in south Dublin city and the west. The St. James's and Cherry Orchard sites operate this virtual model for older people under three pathways. We have crisis management, rehabilitation and palliative care. These patients would all be older people who would be at high-risk of emergency department admission.

I will again give an example of the early impact of this. Some 500 older people are admitted annually through these 80 virtual beds. They averted 414 ED presentations in 2023, saving approximately 1,200 hospital bed days. Those are early indications of that. The virtual ward in the community can prevent 94% of crisis management patients presenting to ED. It is significant for the patient and for the impact on hospital settings. There are also 15 of what we describe as seedling projects in operation around the country, and a variety of conditions where we are delivering digitally-led care for anything from virtual contact clinics to some monitoring telemetry, etc., where it goes back to the clinicians and decisions can be made, but the patient does not have to come into hospital.