Professor Dan Lasserson, co-lead of the HRC's Care Homes and Care in the Home theme, has been featured in the BMJ for his innovative approach to delivering acute care in patients' homes.
The profile highlights Professor Lasserson's work developing hospital-at-home services and his use of point-of-care diagnostics, including ultrasound, to treat patients who would previously have needed hospital admission. His patient-centred philosophy – "treating people in their home, if that's where they want to be" – sits at the heart of the theme's work evaluating health technologies for ambulatory and care home settings.
Professor Lasserson is Professor of Acute Ambulatory Care at the University of Warwick and works clinically with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust's Hospital at Home service. He is a past President of the UK Hospital at Home Society, and a member of the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Virtual Wards and Same Day Emergency Care Programmes.
Within the HRC, Professor Lasserson co-leads Theme 4 alongside Professor Adam Gordon from Queen Mary University of London. The theme is establishing platforms for testing diagnostic technologies in care homes, virtual wards (hospital-at-home) and district nursing services, with a particular focus on populations that have been underrepresented in diagnostics research.
About the Care Homes and Care in the Home theme
The theme focuses on evaluating novel health technologies for older people with frailty and multiple long-term conditions. Working with care homes, hospital-at-home services and district nursing teams, the research addresses NHS England priorities including Urgent Community Response, Enhanced Health in Care Homes and Virtual Wards programmes.