South East London ICB is to award its virtual wards contracts with a value of £3.5 million to Doccla UK and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, spanning services across NHS@Home and Virtual Plus Health Monitoring.
One part of the contract, worth £2.25 million, is to fund Lewisham and Greenwich for an NHS@Home Virtual Ward for Lewisham, with core functions including the provision of step-up care as an option for when patients become acutely unwell, and step-down care to facilitate earlier discharge or transfer from an inpatient ward.
Also part of the contract, valued at £1.3 million, has been awarded to Doccla UK for remote monitoring, with an initial focus on COPD and asthma. This will involve the use of digital tools in tracking vital signs, and for monitoring symptoms and medication adherence, ready to be reviewed by a multidisciplinary team.
The service is set to begin on 1 October 2025, with the contract value covering 3o months, and the option for an extension for an additional year.
Wider trend: virtual wards
For a recent HTN Now webinar on the topic of virtual wards, we were joined by a panel of experts including Francesca Markland, senior programme manager for remote monitoring and virtual wards at NHS England; Fhezan Ashraf, senior pharmacist clinical configuration manager at The Dudley Group; and Abigail Scullion, virtual ward manager at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. Our panel tackled a range of questions and key debates in the virtual wards space, sharing insights on their own approaches, experiences and learnings; as well as considering opportunities for future development and the potential for emerging technologies to make an impact across workforce, patient care, operational efficiency, capacity, and more.
Under the 10 Year Health Plan, the government will undertake a national procurement for a new platform for “proactive, planned care”, offering expanded opportunities for remote monitoring. This is backed by further commitments to develop new payment models to encourage a shift in urgent and emergency care, offering financial incentives to drive neighbourhood health forward. The intention is for the platform to be available to all NHS provider organisations, offering functionality including the ability to remotely monitor patients with data flowing through the NHS App and Single Patient Record.
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is trialling a frailty virtual care programme, utilising tech to remotely monitor patients with long-term conditions in their own homes with the hopes of identifying early warning signs to prevent the need for more intensive support. Using the Graphnet Docobo platform to monitor patients remotely, the programme is a partnership initiative between Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, FedBucks, and BOB ICB. Although similar remote monitoring is in place via the trust’s Hospital at Home service, the new pilot offers longer-term non-acute support directed at avoiding frequent hospital visits and supporting patients in staying independent.
