Largest ever UK telecare trial starts

The start of the UK’s largest ever trial of telecare and telehealth in a £31m programme covering 6000 people has been announced by the Department of Health.

Health secretary Alan Johnson said the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) Programme had begun this week in Kent, Newham and Cornwall, testing the potential of technologies like telecare and telehealth to support those with complex health and social care needs.

The programme will run for a minimum of two years covering 2,000 people per site and looking at three patient/user groups and will seek to develop a national business case for the use of assistive technologies.

The pilot will examine the use of telehealth devices for patients of any age who are at risk of current or future hospital admission due to heart failure, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It will look at use of telecare devices for patients with social care needs who are at risk of hospital admission and will also look at the use of assistive technologies for individuals with health and social care needs.

Johnson said: “Improving care with new scientific advances and innovation is vital if the NHS is to continue to offer the very best services, but this innovation must be at the frontline of the NHS to help people manage their conditions better themselves."

The DH said the programme aims to give people the support necessary to help them retain their independence in the community and improve their quality of life by managing their conditions in their own homes.

Expected benefits of the scheme include reduced emergency admissions, reduced use of the acute hospital sector and reduced dependence on care homes. The DH said that if successful the savings generated by reduced admissions could potentially more than offset the cost of the initial investment in the technology.

The WSD programme was initially launched in the white paper Our Health Our Care Our Say and the three successful bids to run the project were announced last May. Since then the three sites have been designing the new services and procuring the telecare and telehealth technology they need to go live, according to the DH.

The DH has commissioned an independent evaluation of the demonstrator programme. The DH said the £31m cost of the programme over three years would cover the costs on each of the three sites of providing services to 2000 people per site, the evaluation, programme and project management, learning dissemination, together with the costs of testing for the first time how health and social care data can be linked electronically in a standardised way.

Related articles

2008: the year telecare grows up?