VR day trips for hospital patients 'reduce anxiety'

Patients have been trialling headsets which allows them to virtually escape hospital walls and enjoy a local day out.

The Places to Escape project in Gloucestershire has been immersing patients at the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust into VR (virtual reality) environments based on nearby locations, including Puzzlewood, a steam railway and the Bristol Zoo Project.

People of all ages have been taking part in 20-minute sessions to help health officials understand what virtual environments work best.

Sarah Kruk, who works in the simulation and technology enhanced learning team said the initial results from the trial have been encouraging and "calming down" patient's "anxiety".

First launched in 2025, the trial was initially only available to patients in oncology and the department of critical care. But it has proved so successful, it has now been rolled out across the rest of the hospital.

The team behind the project use 360-degree cameras to film scenes to allow patients to see and hear everything around them.

Steve Lewis, immersive learning technology officer, said when the footage is watched in a VR headset you can "see everything around you".

Patient Tina Hunt, who has been testing the VR system, has been using it to visit local places and sit in the cockpit of a plane.

She said it takes her away from the "stresses" of waiting for appointments.

"Even when you're looking at your phone or reading a magazine, you've still got the hospital around you," she said.

"You've still got the beeps, nurses running back and forth, so it can be a very stressful area while you're sitting and waiting.

"Taking yourself out of the hospital environment into something you enjoy is good."

Kruk said the team has also tried the headset out with a patient in critical care.

"She wasn't going to go home for a very long time and we managed to take her back to the bluebells in the Forest of Dean where she came from, walks that she did as a child and as a teenager," she added.

The team in Gloucestershire has been talking to patients about other places they could visit virtually and have recently filmed a Gloucester rugby match at Kingsholm.

But that is one experience that Hunt said she would not be immersing herself in.

"My husband and I are Bath fans," she added.

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