CareAnywhere 2026: The NHS Virtual Care Strategy Conference

Current Landscape and Challenges

The NHS is entering a new phase of digitally enabled care, moving beyond individual remote monitoring services towards fully integrated virtual hospital models.

Virtual hospitals bring together acute specialists, community services, primary care, remote diagnostics, digital platforms and multidisciplinary teams to deliver coordinated hospital-level care beyond traditional hospital settings.

These models have the potential to improve patient flow, reduce avoidable admissions, support earlier discharge and provide patients with more personalised care closer to home.

However, creating a sustainable virtual hospital requires more than technology alone. NHS organisations must redesign clinical pathways, establish clear governance arrangements, integrate data across multiple systems and develop workforce models capable of supporting care across physical and digital environments.

The challenge now is to move from isolated digital services to coordinated virtual hospital systems that are clinically safe, operationally sustainable and embedded within everyday NHS delivery.

Summit Focus

CareAnywhere 2026 brings together NHS leaders responsible for developing virtual hospitals, hospital-at-home services, remote clinical pathways and digitally enabled models of care.

The conference will focus on the practical delivery of virtual hospital services, exploring how NHS organisations can bring together clinical teams, digital infrastructure, community services and operational pathways into one coordinated model.

Delegates will hear directly from NHS teams implementing new approaches to remote care, early supported discharge, specialist monitoring and hospital-level treatment outside traditional clinical environments.

Through NHS case studies, skill clinics, deep-dive sessions and peer-led discussion, the programme will examine the frameworks required to design, govern, scale and evaluate virtual hospitals successfully.