The latest virtual wards figures for October 2025 have been published, showing an overall virtual ward capacity for England of 12,588, or 19.7 beds per 100,000 GP registered population. In October 2024, these figures were 12,651 and 20.0 beds per 100,000, respectively. Occupancy rates for England are also averaged out at 79.8 percent, a slight increase on 78.2 percent the year prior.
In the latest stats from October, the top performing ICBs in terms of capacity per 100,000 GP registered population include Northamptonshire (41.2), Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (35), Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin (31.1), and Hertfordshire and West Essex (29.2).
Looking to occupancy, six ICBs report occupancy rates of 100 percent for October 2025: Black Country, Derby and Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, Sussex, and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. Five further ICBs achieved an occupancy rate of 95 percent or higher, including Gloucestershire (98.5), South West London (97.3), Mid and South Essex (96.7), Hertfordshire and West Essex (95.3), and Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West (also 95.3).
Overall, the number of ICBs meeting 80 percent occupancy is 18 out of the 41 reported. A further 14 recorded rates of over 70 percent, and 7 were over 60 percent.
Leeds Community, Sussex Community, Royal Free, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB
Leeds Community Healthcare, with a virtual wards capacity of 67 and occupancy rate of 83.6 percent as of October’s figures, offered an update on its own virtual wards across community stroke rehabilitation, home ward respiratory, and frailty.
The home ward respiratory pathway, which supports early discharge from hospital and more intensive support to avoid hospital admission, is undergoing regular reviews with clinical leads, and maximising the use of clinics to increase capacity, the trust shares. Referrals into community stroke rehabilitation showed a “sustained increase” over winter 2024/25, “a trend that is expected to continue this winter”, the trust continues, whilst the 55-bed capacity frailty virtual ward averaged 70 percent for occupancy in the same period, with expectations for “similar or higher” demand this year.
Sussex Community’s winter plan for 2025/26 shares that reaching the 80 percent occupancy target with step-up and step-down pathways is a “key focus area”, with the trust already recording 100 percent occupancy in the latest figures for its 180-bed virtual ward. Front door clinical lead practitioners have been “substantively recruited” according to the trust, with a focus on assessing patients for step-up into services, including for admission onto virtual wards.
“Following a reconfiguration of services in April 2025, Urgent Community Response teams are now focused on all aspects of admission avoidance, including the delivery of General Virtual Wards,” Sussex Community notes. “The aim of the GVW service is to support patients with a higher level of acuity to be safely managed at home or their usual place of residence. This can include patients on either an admission avoidance or early supported discharge pathway, where the alternative would be NHS bedded care.”
Scaling up virtual wards capacity is also a focus for Royal Free, with a capacity of 100 virtual wards beds and an occupancy rate of 89 percent for October 2025. Actions to be taken for winter 2025/26 cover collaboration between SDEC and virtual wards services and step-up pathways directly into speciality pathways, along with plans to increase community step-up direct to virtual wards. More services will be added with new pathways to Hospital @ Home and virtual wards, and at Barnet Hospital the trust is looking to expand remote monitoring capabilities with additional devices and equipment such as passive monitoring, and to integrate remote monitoring to Cerner EPR.
Virtual wards were a focus in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICBs October 2025 performance and finance report, where the board highlights underperformance and “under-utilisation” of step-up and step-down pathways, particularly for surgical patients, which it states “is limiting flow and delaying discharge processes”. In October 2025’s statistics, the ICB reported a 71.9 percent occupancy rate for its 135 virtual wards beds, with 11.2 beds per 100,000 GP registered population.
Staffing pressures across multiple teams are impacting service delivery and capacity, according to the ICB, which also shares that a review is underway of the surgical pathway in the North Team to tackle low utilisation, and mitigation plans are being explored for staffing.
Next steps include the development of additional pathways ahead of winter, including High Risk of Delay (HRD) tool expansion into Urinary Tract Infections and Cellulitis as a pilot within the Emergency Department, respiratory pathway, and a palliative pathway.
Wider trend: Virtual wards
For a 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 shared its intention to 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 platform will 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.
