WardAnywhere 2026: The NHS Virtual Wards to Virtual Hospitals Strategy Conference
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WardAnywhere 2026: The NHS Virtual Wards to Virtual Hospitals Strategy Conference
A Strategic Summit on Virtual Care Implementation and System Integration - All Convenzis Events Provide 8 CPD Points Per Delegate
Virtual wards have evolved from local innovation pilots into a core component of NHS service delivery. As outlined in the NHS 10-Year Health Plan and Data Strategy, they are now central to the ambition of providing hospital-level care at home, enhancing capacity, reducing admissions, and improving patient experience.
The government’s commitment to a single national virtual ward model marks a defining step toward interoperability, standardisation, and sustainable adoption at scale.
The next phase of delivery depends not only on technology, but on governance, workforce confidence, and clinical assurance. As virtual wards expand to manage higher-acuity patients across conditions such as heart failure, frailty, and respiratory illness, systems must align operational design with safe, data-driven practice.
The NHS Virtual Ward Summit 2026 convenes national and regional leaders to translate this strategic direction into resilient local capability.
Summit Focus:
The Virtual Ward Summit is a strategic learning forum designed to support NHS teams moving from concept to continuous improvement in virtual care. Delegates will access evidence-based frameworks, workforce development models, and peer insights that underpin sustainable, high-quality implementation.
Dedicated Skill Clinics will focus on practical tools for data integration, escalation management, and workforce development, equipping leaders to embed safety, governance, and digital confidence across care settings.
Lessons Learned Sessions will feature candid reflections from NHS teams on the operational realities of scaling virtual wards, including challenges in workforce readiness, digital maturity, and clinical assurance.
This is not a showcase of what to achieve, but a skills exchange on how to achieve it, translating national ambition into measurable improvement.
This year’s event is structured around clear outcomes:
Delegates will leave understanding:
- Strategic alignment between the NHS Virtual Ward Framework and ICS delivery priorities.
- Approaches for embedding interoperability, clinical governance, and escalation protocols within hybrid care models.
- Workforce development methods for building digital confidence, leadership capability, and clinical competence.
- Evidence-based models for ensuring safety, quality assurance, and patient-centred care at scale.
- Data-driven processes for measuring value, tracking impact, and maintaining momentum post-implementation.
- Lessons from applied experience, translating early challenges into sustained improvement and system-wide resilience.
What’s New for 2026:
- Morning & Afternoon Skill Clinics: Interactive sessions offering frameworks, templates, and tools to strengthen operational confidence and workforce readiness.
- Lessons Learned Sessions: In-depth discussions with NHS leaders reflecting on implementation hurdles, corrective action, and measurable results.
- Peer Learning Circles: Structured exchanges enabling ICB and ICS teams to share learning and co-design solutions for digital and clinical integration.
- Action-Driven Case Studies: Deep dives into trusts and partners that have embedded safe, connected, and patient-centred virtual ward models.
Why Attend:
- Earn 8 CPD Points by attending.
- Strengthen professional capability through applied, hands-on learning grounded in real NHS experience.
- Access practical resources for workforce training, governance assurance, and digital infrastructure development.
- Gain insight from NHS teams leading the national scale-up of virtual wards and hybrid care models.
- Take away implementation artefacts, evaluation tools, and planning templates ready for local rollout.
- Join a national community of professionals committed to capability-building and sustainable virtual care delivery.
Who Would Benefit:
This summit is designed for NHS leaders driving the delivery and expansion of virtual wards, including ICB and ICS teams, Chief Nurses, AHP Leads, CCIOs, CIOs, service managers, and transformation directors.
It will also benefit community providers, GP leaders, operational planners, and patient experience teams implementing safe, connected, and scalable virtual care.
Suppliers, technology partners, and academic collaborators will gain strategic insight into NHS priorities, workforce development needs, and the system enablers shaping the next decade of digital and home-based care delivery.
Sponsors & Partners
Your Pass Includes....
- This conference is CPD accredited. Attendees will be eligible to gain 8 CPD points upon completion of the event.
- Access to a leading conference speaker programme
- Interactive Q&A sessions
- Fireside interviews
- Cross-sector best practice
- Meet the supplier opportunities
- Hot breakfast & Lunch included
- Access to post event drinks reception and Street food
Tickets For NHS Senior Managers
We have an invite only option for NHS Senior Managers for our conference, to see if you qualify for a complimentary place please click the button below.
Conference Speakers
Alison
Davis
Clinical Quality Improvement Lead
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Read biography
Francesca
Markland
Senior Programme Manager, Remote Monitoring & Virtual Wards
NHSE London Region Digital Transformation Team
Read biography
Gurnak Singh
Dosanjh
GP and ICB Deputy Chief Clinical Information Officer
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB
Read biography
Mr David
Cruttenden-Wood
Clinical Director Of Virtual Healthcare HHFT. Acute, General & Colorectal Surgeon. NHS England Regional Clinical Advisor (UEC)
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT)
Read biography
The programme
Registration & Networking
Registration - Open from 8:20 am - Closes at 11:00 am
All delegates must complete their registration process before the 11:00 AM cut-off time. Please arrive in a timely manner to allow for registration and to avoid any inconvenience. Delegates who arrive after the registration deadline will be refused entry to the event.
We appreciate your cooperation in helping us maintain the event's schedule and ensuring that everyone can fully participate in the conference. If you have any questions or require assistance, our event staff will be available to assist you with the registration process.
Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to an insightful and productive event together!
Keynote Presentation - Unified Wellness: Integrated virtual care for all (Confirmed)
Session Overview:
Expanding safe, seamless, resilient wrap around care for the right people, at the right time in the best place.
Key Points:
- To describe the journey we have all gone through to realise sustainable virtual care that has a strong governance structure.
- How best to reinforce and create the paradigm shift required to drive virtual care forward.
- What needs to be true to allow equitable, fair & fluid healthcare across neighbourhood’s and systems to maximise health & well-being.
- Reimagining healthcare without walls fit for the future.
Morning Skill Clinic - Leading the Workforce Shift: Upskilling Teams for Virtual Ward Success (Speakers TBC)
Morning Skill Clinic
A focused, senior-leadership clinic on developing the workforce behind virtual wards. Delegates will gain frameworks for assessing digital confidence, creating targeted training programmes, and embedding a “digital-first but people-centred” culture. The clinic will emphasise how to empower staff through change and maintain safety while adopting new ways of working.
Panelists:
- Alison Davis, Clinical Quality Improvement Lead, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (Confirmed)
- Claire Beard, Virtual Ward Manager, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHSFT (Confirmed)
Morning Break & Networking
Morning Break & Networking
Chair Morning Reflection (Confirmed)
Chair Morning Reflection (Confirmed)
Case Study - AF@Home – the Gloucestershire experience so far
Case Study - Doccla
About us:
Doccla is a leading provider of virtual ward and remote patient monitoring services, supporting over 50 NHS organisations. Our comprehensive solution enhances clinical capacity, reduces hospital admissions, and improves patient outcomes. With CQC accreditation, seamless NHS system integration, and proven cost savings, Doccla offers a scalable, end-to-end service that optimises healthcare delivery.
Case Study - Enovation
Case Study - Enovation
We are Enovation. We’re here for the healthcare sector. We’re here for the dedicated professionals who devote their personal attention to each and every patient. We’re here for the organisations who provide ever more complex care to a rising number of people with fewer staff. We’re here for the clinicians and the caregivers. And we’re here for the patients and their families who want to receive the assistance and care they need, today, tomorrow and in the future.
We assist by developing connected care solutions that support healthcare professionals and clients in an innovative way. Digital tools that allow organisations to provide digital care in a smart, efficient way and collaborate with one another and with the client.
This is how we contribute to the healthcare system of the future; to help create a more effective, less prone to human errors and more efficient system. A system in which we rely on technology, but that allows healthcare providers to focus on the most important thing: giving patients their time and attention.
Leadership Lessons from the Front Line - When Virtual Care Gets Tough (Confirmed)
Session Overview:
A candid conversation with an NHS leader reflecting on the toughest moments of implementing virtual wards where plans wobbled, what was learned, and how resilience was rebuilt. This open dialogue will provide practical insight into managing pressure, safeguarding patient safety, and protecting staff wellbeing through rapid digital change.
Case Study - Scaling Virtual Wards: From Evidence Gaps to AI-Enabled Delivery
Case Study - Ortus-iHealth
Virtual wards are a core NHS strategy, but the reality onthe ground often involves high operational burdens, digital exclusion, and unclear productivity gains. The standard "one kit for everyone"approach is financially unscalable and creates a massive administrativebottleneck for nurses, who spend hours manually chasing patient readings and providing tech support.
To meet the productivity demands of the NHS 10-year strategy, systems must shift from fixed hardware to flexible, pathway-driven
care. This presentation explores how adopting device-light models drastically reduced technology costs at Barts Health NHS Trust.
Furthermore, we will introduce the next evolution in scalable care: an AI Nurse Voice Agent. By proactively calling patients to conduct conversational assessments (requiring no apps, logins, or tablets) the AI eliminates digital barriers and frees up critical nursing time. Join us to discover how transitioning from a "pilot culture" to AI-supported delivery can build truly sustainable virtual pathways.
Lunch & Networking
Lunch & Networking
Case Study - Delivering the NHS Three Shifts at Scale: An Integrated Approach to Remote Monitoring
Case Study - Luscii
Remote monitoring is fast becoming a practical enabler of the NHS three shifts, from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. As system pressures intensify, it offers a scalable way to protect frontline services while managing demand across entire populations.
This session will feature NHS colleagues Julietta Newton (Matron) and Kingsley Marshall (Programme Manager) from Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent ICB, who will share their experience of implementing an integrated Graphnet-Luscii model that connects population health insights, shared care records and remote monitoring into a coordinated, system-wide approach.
Together, we will explore:
- How risk is identified across populations and translated into actionable pathways.
- How remote monitoring has been embedded across long-term conditions, urgent care and virtual wards.
- What the transition has looked like in practice — operationally, clinically and culturally.
- The measurable impact on outcomes, workforce efficiency and hospital demand.
Julietta and Kingsley will provide an honest perspective on what the model has enabled within their organisation, sharing the practical benefits realised and lessons learned from implementation at scale.
NHS Deep Dive - Designing Safe & Connected Virtual Ward Workflows: Lessons from Implementation (Confirmed)
NHS Deep Dive
An in-depth exploration of how one NHS trust built reliable virtual-ward pathways linking acute, community, and primary care. The session focuses on governance, digital integration, and clinical escalation processes, showing how structured workflow design can improve both safety and patient experience.
NHS Deep Dive - Preventing the Front Door: Mobile X-Ray as a Gateway to the Virtual Ward (Confirmed)
Session Overview:
The X-Ray Car project at Derriford Hospital is an innovative, community-based diagnostic service aligned with the NHS 10 Year Plan, supporting the shift from hospital-centred care to early intervention in the community. By delivering mobile X-ray diagnostics following falls, the service reduces ambulance conveyance and prevents avoidable Emergency Department attendances as well as unnecessary hospital admissions.
Delivered by a number of teams including the Community Crisis Response Team (CCRT), Radiology and Virtual Ward, the model combines rapid diagnostics with holistic clinical assessment, including point-of-care testing for patients following long lies. Patients are then onboarded to the Virtual Ward for multidisciplinary review, proactive care planning, and ongoing management.
The project demonstrates effective collaboration between the acute hospital trust UHP and Livewell Southwest, a social enterprise partner, delivering improved patient experience, better outcomes for frail patients, and tangible reductions in system pressure.
Afternoon Skill Clinic - Measuring Value & Maintaining Momentum: Leadership Tools for Sustaining Virtual Care (Speakers TBC)
Afternoon Skill Clinic
A leadership-focused skills session designed to help delegates demonstrate impact and sustain transformation. Attendees will explore evaluation methods, ROI communication, and workforce-capability tracking, leaving with templates and talking points for board assurance and continuous-improvement planning.
Food, Drinks & Networking
Food, Drinks & Networking
End of Day
End of Day
Virtual Wards Event Gallery Series
