The UK’s first virtual hospital opens to the public this week to demonstrate the future of London’s healthcare network.

The Second Health project allows visitors to explore a three-dimensional model of a clinic, created within the online world of Second Life. As users travel around the virtual hospital, they can watch multimedia presentations demonstrating the activities of specific departments.

The collaborative project between the National Physics Laboratory (NPL) and Imperial College London (ICL) was originally designed to showcase future plans for healthcare in the capital.

The Healthcare For London plan, published by the NHS in July, calls for the creation of a network of 150 compact medical institutions called polyclinics.

Second Health was intended primarily as a means of communicating the plan to the public, said ICL surgeon Dr James Kinross.

‘Second Life allows us to do things that have not been possible before, particularly with regard to visualising abstract concepts,’ he said.

‘We wanted people to understand what a polyclinic was without them having to sit down and read a 300-page document.

‘In Second Life we can create that place and have it function as a building, so people can walk around and see how it fits together,’ said Kinross.

But the virtual building also houses other information.

The Second Health hospital has been used to create films showing how patients with different conditions move through London’s healthcare system. One film tells the story of a heart attack victim, detailing treatment at each stage.

There are also potential training applications.

‘Students learn to become doctors by role-playing in a hospital environment,’ said NPL Second Health managing director Dave Taylor. ‘You can role-play extremely efficiently with Second Life, so we expect to be able to train medical students and GPs.’

Remote access technologies are playing an increasing role in healthcare. The global market for telehealth systems will be worth $8bn (£3.97bn) by 2012, according to a report last week from analyst Datamonitor.

In May the government put up £12m for trials in Kent, Newham in London, and Cornwall.