New study shows Hospital at Home service is 'game changer' for children and families

A children's 'Hospital at Home' service has shown it can dramatically reduce the time its young patients need to spend in hospital, according to a new study.

The service, run by Evelina London Children's Hospital in the London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark, aims to provide a range of medical care for children and teenagers in their own homes. In many cases this has either helped to avoid a hospital admission or has allowed a child to leave hospital sooner.

The study, recently published in the medical journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, aimed to measure retrospectively how effective the Hospital at Home service had been for child patients from its launch in 2018 until 2022.

It showed that during that period, the service helped 4,427 children either go home from hospital earlier or avoid a hospital admission altogether.

This in turn helped free up more than 11,000 'bed days' across 2 major hospitals in south London – Evelina London Children's Hospital and King's College Hospital.

Dr Ronny Cheung, consultant paediatrician at Evelina London and lead investigator of the study, said the improvements in patient care offered by Hospital at Home have provided the evidence to support a wider roll-out of the service for child patients across the country.

Commenting on the study, he said: "Across the NHS there is a growing ambition to introduce more tailored, home-based care for patients and reduce the time they need to spend in hospital.

"We've already shown that the Hospital at Home model can work for adult patients, but until now there has been a lack of evidence showing it can be translated across to children and young people.

Our results from the first 4 years of the children's Hospital at Home service show it can be equally safe and effective – but just as importantly, it can also greatly improve the experiences of our young patients and their families. They have told us they are far happier receiving care and treatment in the comfort of their own home wherever possible.

The service allows children and teenagers to receive a range of treatments and observations for short-term illnesses in their own home, under the care of specially qualified children's community nurses. Common treatments that can be provided include giving medication, caring for wounds, collecting blood and measuring a patient's vital signs.

One young patient who has welcomed the chance to spend more time at home with his family is 14-year-old Guilherme Niero Mansi from Southwark.

Guilherme, usually known as Gui, was born with a complex range of medical conditions including spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and as a younger child he spent long stints in hospital at the Evelina London. However, since signing up to the Hospital at Home service in 2018, his mum, Debora, says they have managed to slash the time Gui spends in hospital by about 85-90%.

She said: "Gui has low immunity and his lungs are not strong, so he gets a lot of infections. When he was younger, I'd need to take him to hospital, and then he could be there for a month. And that could happen maybe 4 times a year.

But now with the Hospital at Home team, if Gui needs anything that I can't do myself, I'll call them and they'll come. If he has an infection they will come twice a day and they are really amazing – they are very consistent in how they do all the treatments.

Less time in hospital means Gui can focus on his schoolwork with a tutor who comes to his home, as well as enjoying playing on his iPad and having days out with Debora, his dad Claudio and older sister Luiza.

Debora added: "He's a very smart boy and he loves technology, as well as music, maths and English. He also loves playing with a ball and going to parks and museums – and he gets a lot more chance to do these things he loves now. It's been a game changer for us."