Clean Air Day - Video consultations prevent 40,000 trips to appointments at Cardiff and Vale hospitals
Video consultations have prevented over 40,000 trips to hospital appointments for people living in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board estimates that over 400,000 miles of travel to its premises has been suspended since the introduction of the NHS Wales Video Consultancy Service in April 2020, resulting in over 115 tonnes of CO 2 emissions being avoided.
The service enables patients to access their clinical appointments over video from the comfort of their own home or without having to leave work, giving thousands of people more flexibility in how they see their clinicians and limiting their impact on the environment.
Introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the service has also played a key role in enabling the Health Board to implement social distance preservation measures across its sites.
Dr Allan Wardhaugh, Chief Clinical Information Officer at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said: “The introduction of the NHS Wales Video Consultancy Service has been a huge success for Cardiff and Vale UHB. Just look at some of the figures needed to see the significant positive impact for our patients, clinicians and the environment.
“Video consultations not only offer thousands of patients more flexibility in how they attend hospital appointments, but by preventing a significant number of trips to hospital appointments every day they help reduce traffic, parking difficulties and CO emissions. 2 around our sites.
“Video consultations will play an important role as we work on increasing the sustainable healthcare we offer, closer to people's homes. As part of our Digital Strategy, I look forward to working with colleagues across the organization to continue to identify and embed further innovative use of the technology into our services in the future.”
For more information on the NHS Wales Video Consultancy Service, including the growing list of Cardiff and Vale UHB services offering video appointments, visit our video consultation page.