How Virtual Wards are Transforming Patient Care
A collaboration between Kinetik Wellbeing and Doccla, which supplies the NHS, is setting the standard for hospital at home care delivery in Europe. The proliferation of virtual wards represents a fundamental shift in patient care delivery in Europe, spearheaded by the NHS in the UK. Following the launch of NHS England’s virtual wards programme in 2022, all 42 integrated care boards in England have developed a virtual ward or ‘hospital at home’ programme1, enabling patients to receive quality hospital-level care in the comfort of their own homes through the use of medical devices monitored by clinical teams.
The case study is available as a PDF here.
NHS Virtual Wards and Adoption in Europe
By 2023, the NHS was treating 100,000 people a year through hospital at home care, freeing up hospital beds and reducing pressure on emergency departments.
By March 2026, there were over 10,000 patients in England in a virtual ward, reflecting an 83.5% occupancy rate.
NHS Trusts across the UK, as well as healthcare providers in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, are turning to virtual wards to optimise resources and improve clinical outcomes in a climate of ever-increasing service demand.
For example, Ireland’s Virtual Ward programme has supported over 3,000 patients and freed up more than 25,000 bed days since its launch in 2024.
However, virtual wards require a delicate balance of factors to operate efficiently: specifically, cost-effective access to the right technology from suppliers with a strong understanding of not only the medical provider’s specific requirements but also a shared commitment to patient-centred care.
Virtual Wards NHS: Kinetik Wellbeing and Doccla Collaboration
In 2024, Kinetik Wellbeing began a successful collaboration with Doccla5. The collaboration makes sound commercial and strategic sense: both companies are trusted NHS providers, while Kinetik’s mission to empower health at home via clinically proven, innovative medical devices is fundamentally aligned with Doccla’s role as a European leader in virtual care and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), delivering across the continuum from proactive, long-term support to higheracuity virtual ward pathways.
Céline Lavaud, Doccla Chief Business Operations Officer, said: “In Remote Patient Monitoring, suppliers are an extension of your care team, and partnering with reliable ones who own patient safety and consistently go the extra mile is what makes a seamless patient experience possible.”
Tom Mepham, Kinetik Wellbeing Head of UK Sales and Marketing, explained that Kinetik strives to deliver affordable and understandable medical devices. “This principle applies to the service we provide to Doccla in that we provide affordable, clinically accurate devices at reasonable costs,” Mr Mepham said. “This in turn allows Doccla to save costs for the NHS Trusts that they serve and gives them a competitive advantage when tendering for virtual ward contracts.”
Since the launch, the number of virtual ward contracts has increased dramatically. Doccla is now Europe’s leading virtual ward service provider, present in over 60% of the NHS regions, and delivering tech-enabled at-home patient care in the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe.
More than 40,000 Kinetik medical devices will be used in homes in the UK, Ireland, and Germany.
How Can Virtual Wards Improve Patient Care at Home?
While Hospital at Home programmes have existed since the 1960s, advancements in medical device technology, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic, accelerated the roll out in the 2020s. As the pandemic receded, the back-log of chronic cases compounded pressure on hospitals.
There is growing evidence that virtual wards can prevent hospital admissions and reduce the length of stays as well as improving clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Other benefits of virtual wards and Remote Patient Monitoring include:
• Freeing up hospital beds and medical staff for more critical in-person treatments
• Enabling care for patients in a familiar environment, close to their support network
• Higher reported satisfaction and sense of autonomy compared with inpatient stays
• Enabling hospitals to manage more appointments and operations
• Streamlining administrative tasks so more time can be devoted to patient care
• Potential reduction of costs per episode
• Increasing equity in healthcare between urban and rural areas
Are virtual wards cost-effective?
An NHS evaluation in the South East of England, published in 2024 and analysing results from 29 NHS virtual wards, reported that virtual wards were estimated to have reduced non-elective admissions by more than 9,000 cases per year and realised an estimated net benefit of £10.4 million per year associated with admission avoidance.
Hospitals using Doccla services have reported a reduction in average length of stay, enabling healthcare practitioners to treat more patients within the same
timeframe.
A two-year study launched in February 202510, the first of its kind, is expected to significantly add to the data. Commissioned by NHS England, and being carried out by City St George’s, University of London, Healthcare Integration Partners (HIP), and Kaleidoscope, the study will include econometric modelling to assess patient and hospital-level outcomes as well as cost-effectiveness analysis.
Enabling better clinical outcomes through collaboration
A Commenting at the launch of the two-year study, Dr Navid Izady, a City St George’s academic, said the success of virtual wards “is dependent on applying a highly efficient operation model, selecting the right set of patients, and having the right technology in place.”
We would add that the right technology must be backed by the right supplier pipeline: organisations which have not only a proven track record, but are agile enough to deliver cost-effective solutions to meet specific needs.
Kinetik Wellbeing’s collaboration with Doccla fulfils this value proposition. Founded in the UK in 2008, Kinetik works with CCGs and NHS Trusts covering more than one in six patients in England, as well as with NHS Scotland and all 14 NHS Scotland Boards, NHS Wales and the Wales Cardiac Network, and NHS Northern Ireland.
Kinetik’s reputation is based on own-label expertise in medical device design, manufacturing and regulatory standards. Our devices are compliant with European medical device regulations and are Class IIa Medical Devices.
Meanwhile, Doccla has scaled since 2019 to become a leading provider of virtual wards to the NHS as well as Europe’s leading virtual care provider, with their
own CQC-regulated clinical team.
Our collaboration has so far focused on the UK and the Republic of Ireland. However, Doccla has launched in Germany, and Kinetik is providing devices for trial in Germany.
Read our case study with NHS North Central London CCG
Collaboration In Action: A Bespoke Pulse Oximeter
Kinetik Wellbeing and Doccla have created a customised market leading Smart Pulse Oximeter optimised for clinical outcomes and ease of use. The MD300CI218 Smart Pulse Oximeter from Kinetik measures Blood Oxygen (SpO2), Pulse Rate (PR), Perfusion Index (PI%) and Respiratory Rate (RR).
Mr Mepham said Kinetik worked with the manufacturer to customise an existing model specifically for Doccla. “The Kinetik product development team and Doccla clinical team worked hand in hand to customise and optimise the performance for clinical use,” he said.
“Customisations included adding a delay and then two stage colour indicator to the SpO2 and RR display. An initial delay (based upon the number of measured heartbeats) allows the Pulse Oximeter to achieve a stable SpO2 and RR reading before the grey result is displayed.
“After a further period, the grey display changes to white, indicating the measurement is stable. This customisation prevents an initial false or misleading reading being recorded before the Oximeter has had time to stabilise.”
The Smart Pulse Oximeter also features Light Intensity Technology to ensure accurate performance for darker skin tones. The technology automatically increases light intensity if a weak signal is detected, which can be caused by darker pigmentation.
Conclusion
Virtual wards and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) are transforming patient care – and we are at an exciting stage in adoption.
As a growing body of research provides an evidence-based understanding of how patient-centred care can be balanced with resource allocation, healthcare providers will be seeking collaborations with medical technology organisations that enable patients at home to receive the best possible real-time care.
Find out more about how Kinetik Wellbeing enables health at home solutions.