Virtual wards (also known as ‘hospital at home’) allow patients with acute needs to receive care safely and conveniently at home, rather than in hospital. This approach can speed up recovery and improve patient experience, while freeing up hospital beds for those most in need of on-site acute care.

With over 12,700 beds now available across England, virtual wards are a key NHS priority — but until now, there has been no large-scale national evaluation of their impact.

To help build this evidence base further and understand the impact of virtual wards, NHS England has appointed Health Integration Partners (HIP) in partnership with City and St. George’s University of London to deliver a national evaluation study.

Health Integration Partners bring extensive experience of design, delivery, evaluation and improvement of virtual wards. They are joined by evaluation partners City St George’s, University of London who bring deep academic expertise in large-scale health evaluations and advanced analytics.

About the Evaluation

The two-year evaluation will explore the quantitative impact of mature virtual wards on patient outcomes and the healthcare system and produce an evidence base to inform future policy, along with a Virtual Wards Evaluation Toolkit to enable self-evaluation in the future.

The project’s methodology will include econometric modelling to assess patient and hospital-level outcomes, such as readmission rates and length of stay. A simulation model will then estimate how changes at patient and hospital levels can combine to affect system-wide measures, such as overall bed availability and patient flow throughout the healthcare system. In addition, a cost-effectiveness analysis will estimate expenditures associated with virtual wards, per unit of improvement in key outcomes, to take into account costs to the healthcare system and broader social care networks.

Key lines of enquiry for both step-up and step-down virtual wards include:

• Patient Demographics and Profiles: Characteristics of patients accessing virtual wards and comparing this data with those receiving traditional inpatient care.

• Impact on Patient Outcomes: Evaluating how virtual wards affect key patient outcomes, such as length of stay, readmission rates, mortality, and overall patient activity.

• System Demand and Capacity: Analysing the impact of virtual wards on hospital and healthcare system demand including ED attendances, non-elective admissions, hospital length of stay.

• Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Evaluating the financial implications of virtual wards including costs to the health system and potentially, wider social care system.

Why This Matters

“Virtual wards offer real potential to improve patient experience while supporting NHS sustainability. This national evaluation is critical — not only to measure impact, but to understand why certain models succeed. Our goal is to generate actionable insight that shapes the future of virtual care for the benefit of patients and the wider system.”

Dr Ashish Dwivedi, Director, Health Integration Partners

An NHS England spokesperson said:

“The evidence base for virtual wards has grown rapidly over recent years. We are pleased to be working with Health Integration Partners and City St George’s University to further strengthen this understanding through a comprehensive national evaluation.”

Stay Informed

The evaluation is already underway, with key milestones and deliverables planned throughout the next two years. Interim findings will be published here, providing NHS stakeholders and the public with transparent insights into progress and impact.

👉 Bookmark this page for updates and interim findings.

For more information or to get in touch:

• Dr Ashish Dwivedi – ashish.dwivedi@healthintegrationpartners.co.uk

• Rehan Qureshi – rehan.qureshi@healthintegrationpartners.co.uk