Interactive Care trial

Interactive Care lets you connect with healthcare professionals remotely through mobile carts with live video. This is known as tele-sitting.

As part of the New Hospital Programme (NHP), we are looking at how Interactive Care can make your stay in a single-occupancy room better. With this live video connection, you and our team can see and speak with each other more easily, even when staff aren’t in the room.

These conversations are private and never recorded. If any notes are taken they are securely documented in a similar way as your medical notes.

We hope this helps you feel safer and more supported during your time with us.

More timely support

Patients can speak with a nurse or healthcare professional directly via video, without waiting for someone to enter the room.

Enhanced safety

For patients who need closer monitoring, tele-sitting allows staff to keep a watchful eye remotely, helping to reduce unwelcome events such as falls.

Improved comfort and reassurance

You can see and talk to a nurse or healthcare worker right away through the screen, without waiting for someone to come into your room.

Your privacy matters

While the secure feed remains active to ensure safety, you can choose to request privacy and turn off the video as and when you would like.

Representatives from the trust visited the USA, where this technology is widely used to help us understand how patients benefit from the technology, and they found:

• shorter hospital stays due to faster interventions
• fewer falls and incidents, thanks to an increased clinical presence
• greater peace of mind, knowing someone is always available to help
• more personalised care, as nurses have more time to focus on clinical needs.

We are exploring how virtual care can improve the hospital experience for patients, especially as the NHS moves towards more digital and connected healthcare. Our aim is to see how these new technologies can support patients in single rooms, where it might be harder for staff to check in as often.

By gathering feedback and evidence from both patients and staff, we hope to find ways to make care safer, quicker, and more personalised. This will also help us decide how we can use these ideas in more hospitals in the future.

We want to make care safer and more responsive for our patients. We are working to give better support and keep a closer eye on everyone. Our goal is to help patients feel more satisfied and improve their wellbeing. We are also gathering good evidence to show how Interactive Care could help more people across the NHS.

We’re running the pilot in the surgical wards at Musgrove Park Hospital, as these areas have many single rooms.

We’ll use up to 8 interactive carts, which could include artificial intelligence (AI) to map the bed area and give even better support alongside our dedicated interactive care clinician.

Please note: This is a trial only. At this stage it won’t be linked with any hospital systems, but it’s a vital step towards improving patient care using technology.

The proofing of this patient leaflet has been supported by the use of AI. For further information please contact: patient.information@somersetFT.nhs.uk

TW/IC/ICT/OCT25 – review OCT28