NHS customer case · Cambridge

Connecting specialist regional care with families at home

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist care for children and adolescents with complications of excess weight across the East of England.

The service combines multidisciplinary expertise at Addenbrooke’s with remote assessment, virtual follow-up and regional collaboration. Evira adds connected home monitoring and digital communication around that existing model of care.

East of England CEW hubHybrid care modelResearch-led service

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

At a glance

1
East of England hub
Cambridge is listed by NHS England within the Complications from Excess Weight programme for the East of England.
2
Regional model
The service works with Norfolk and Norwich and other regional services to support children and young people across the East of England.
3
Hybrid delivery
Public pathway information shows that assessment and follow-up can be delivered through a combination of face-to-face, telephone and video-based care.
4
Academic links
The service works alongside the University of Cambridge Department of Paediatrics, Institute of Metabolic Science and MRC Epidemiology Unit.

The pathway today

Specialist care across a large region

Children referred to the Cambridge CEW service may require input from multiple specialist disciplines over an extended period of time.

Because the service supports families across the East of England, specialist care is not limited to traditional hospital appointments.

Public information from Cambridge University Hospitals describes a pathway combining in-person specialist care with telephone and video consultations, allowing parts of the assessment and follow-up process to take place remotely.

This creates a model where specialist expertise can be delivered regionally while families remain supported closer to home.

Source 3

In practice

A hybrid multidisciplinary pathway

Remote assessment

The initial assessment can largely be completed through telephone or video consultations, supported by questionnaires completed by the family.

Specialist MDT

Families may receive input from paediatric endocrinology, specialist nursing, dietetics, psychology and other clinical disciplines depending on their needs.

Regular follow-up

Dietetic and psychological follow-up may take place at Addenbrooke's or remotely by telephone or video.

Between visits

Families are able to remain in contact with the clinical team between scheduled appointments when questions or support needs arise.

Cambridge’s public pathway already combines physical and digital interactions. This makes remote monitoring and asynchronous communication a natural extension of the existing model rather than a replacement for specialist care.

Source 3

Working together

Extending the pathway into the home

Evira adds a digital layer around Cambridge’s existing hybrid care pathway.

Connected home measurements allow progress to be followed over time without requiring every measurement to take place in a clinical setting.

Families can see progress visually without focusing on individual daily weight numbers, while the clinical team can follow the same trajectory remotely.

Digital messaging provides another way for families and clinicians to stay connected between scheduled appointments.

Evira supports the pathway. It does not replace the multidisciplinary team or face-to-face specialist care.

Digital support

Supporting continuity between clinical interactions

At home

Families can collect regular measurements using a connected device in their normal home environment.

Progress over time

The patient experience focuses on the direction of progress rather than individual daily weight numbers.

With the clinical team

Measurements are available to the clinical team, giving additional visibility between scheduled consultations.

Between appointments

Digital communication creates another channel for personalised feedback and support without requiring every interaction to happen in hospital.

This complements a pathway that already uses remote assessment and virtual follow-up to deliver specialist care across a large geographic region.

Research-led care

Developing how digital support should work in specialist obesity care

The Cambridge CEW service sits within a strong academic and clinical research environment.

Cambridge University Hospitals describes collaboration with the University of Cambridge Department of Paediatrics, the Institute of Metabolic Science and the MRC Epidemiology Unit.

Professor Ken Ong, Cambridge’s clinical lead for childhood obesity, has also contributed to peer-reviewed research exploring how digital technology can support young people attending specialist Complications from Excess Weight services.

View the published research ↗

Published research

Digital support should complement — not replace — clinical relationships

A 2025 peer-reviewed study explored the views of young people and families receiving specialist CEW care on the use of digital technology.

The research found that digital tools were seen as potentially useful for providing additional support between clinic appointments.

Participants emphasised that digital care should be personalised, should address needs beyond weight alone, and should complement rather than replace face-to-face support and relationships with clinicians.

Between appointments

Digital technology was seen as useful for providing additional support outside scheduled consultations.

Personalised support

Young people highlighted the importance of individualised support rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

Clinicians still matter

Digital tools were viewed as an addition to specialist relationships, not a replacement for clinical care.

The study participants were recruited through the Norfolk CEW service. Professor Ken Ong from Cambridge was a member of the research team. These findings are relevant CEW research and are not Cambridge-specific patient outcomes.

Read the peer-reviewed study ↗

The role of digital care

More continuity across a regional pathway

Specialist obesity treatment can involve long periods between individual appointments, particularly when care is delivered across a large regional network.

Cambridge’s pathway already combines specialist hospital care with remote consultations and regional collaboration.

Evira adds continuous home data and asynchronous communication around those interactions — helping connect what happens at home with what happens in the clinic.

Ongoing development

Part of a wider shift towards hybrid specialist care

The Cambridge CEW pathway illustrates how specialist paediatric obesity care can be delivered through a combination of hospital-based expertise, regional partnerships and remote interaction.

Alongside this clinical model, Cambridge researchers continue to contribute to the evidence base around how digital tools should be designed and used within specialist obesity services.

Public evidence

What the evidence tells us

Cambridge pathway evidence

A regional hybrid service

Cambridge University Hospitals publicly describes a CEW service combining specialist multidisciplinary care with telephone, video and face-to-face interactions. The service works across the East of England and collaborates with regional services including Norfolk and Norwich.

View Cambridge CEW service ↗

Digital CEW research

How young people want digital support to work

Peer-reviewed CEW research involving Cambridge’s Professor Ken Ong found that young people and families saw digital technology as a useful source of additional support between clinic appointments, while emphasising that it should complement rather than replace clinician relationships.

View published research ↗

Sources and references

No Cambridge-specific Evira outcome or activity data is presented. Cambridge pathway evidence and wider digital CEW research are labelled separately throughout this page.