Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS nurses to trial smart glasses

Nurses are to wear virtual reality-style goggles during home visits in a bid to cut paperwork and free up more time to spend with patients.

The glasses can transcribe appointments directly to electronic records and allow staff to share live footage to hospital staff to get a second opinion.

The aim is to reduce administration linked to appointments so NHS nurses can focus on more clinical duties.

They are being trialled in Northern Lincolnshire and Goole from next week.

Community nurses are estimated to spend more than half of their day filling out forms and manually inputting patient data.

By performing tasks that otherwise would have to be done manually, the NHS said it would give nurses more time for duties such as checking blood pressure, dressing wounds and assessing a patient's health needs.

The smart goggles also include thermal imaging to help assess how wounds and injuries have healed.

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded £40,000 from NHS England to test the project, with 16 more pilot projects to be funded over the coming months.

Becky Birchall, clinical nurse specialist at the trust, said: "We currently spend a considerable amount of time writing up our visits to patients, and these cutting-edge goggles will really help to cut down the time we need to keep for admin, supporting us to care for our patients."

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