Airedale Hospital hosted a high-level delegation from the Middle East, which was in the UK to learn how technology is revolutionising healthcare provision.

The eight delegates included ministers and senior government officials in the fields of health economy, education and information technology from Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

They were representing the Gulf Co-operation Council, and were looking at potential investments to improve the experiences of patients in their own countries.

While at Airedale they were shown how the hospital uses the latest video conferencing systems to connect both patients and staff to specialist clinicians at the touch of a button.

They also learned about a patient administration system, that allows clinicians across the health community to access information about their patients electronically.

Dr Richard Pope, who is developing IT-supported self-care services for people with long-term health problems, said: "The delegation came to see how the NHS is addressing the challenges of the increasing number of people with long-term conditions. Airedale is a typical district hospital facing these challenges.

“We shared with the group our new ways of working, using technology to try and keep people out of hospital and care for them in their own homes.”