According to the NHS, virtual wards allow patients to receive hospital-level care at home thanks to remote monitoring and communication technology. Although first developed in South London in the mid-2000s, their rollout had been limited to a small number of NHS trusts. Now, thanks in part to a convergence of technological advances and an uptick in remote care spurred by shifts in practice during the pandemic, the NHS plans to make them ubiquitous. In its January 2023 delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, NHS England called for the greater use of virtual wards and we’ve seen similar efforts implemented in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.