Hunt: England to be technology ‘leader’
pharmafile | November 15, 2012 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Jeremy Hunt, NHS, telehealth
Technology is to free 100,000 people next year from what health secretary Jeremy Hunt calls the ‘constant merry-go-round’ of doctors’ surgeries and hospitals.
“People with long-term conditions see doctors and nurses more than most of us,” Hunt explained. “Seven out of every ten pounds spent on the health budget go towards supporting them.”
He says they should be able to manage their health independently, reducing the need to go to the doctor or hospital, using telehealth – electronic information and technology which reads signs such as pulse, weight, respiration and blood oxygen levels in the home.
The Department of Health-funded Whole Systems Demonstrator Project showed in December a 45% difference in the mortality rate between those using telehealth and the control group.
Figures also suggested people can reduce the time they have to spend in hospital and improve their quality of life. It could also lead to a £1.2 billion net efficiency gain for the NHS by the end of 2016, the government said.
The data came from 6,000 patients and more than 200 GP practices in places such as Cornwall and Kent – Kernow CCG and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly PCT and NHS Kent & Medway are now among seven ‘pathfinders’, Hunt says.
These seven authorities will agree contracts with technology suppliers that will mean the 100,000 people Hunt mentioned will be able to benefit from telehealth in 2013.
The health secretary said this week that ‘significant progress’ will be made towards three million people being able to manage their illnesses by 2017, making the UK a ‘world leader’ on health technology.
The government actually made this pledge ten months ago, but such numbers represent a significant jump from where the beginning of 2012, when there were only around 5,000 telehealth users in England.
As well as telehealth, the government wants to use telecare devices – such as personal pendant alarms worn around the neck or bed sensors to detect unexpected movements – which can help patients with, for example, dementia to avoid unplanned admissions.
The need for this sort of technology is pressing: 15.4 million in the country have at least one condition which can be managed but not cured, rising to a projected figure of 18 million over the next 20 years.
The government says the NHS will be supplied with the technologies and services ‘at no upfront cost’. Critics have suggested, however, that the cost per QALY gained in the trial was high at £88,000.
And even when research models reduced equipment cost by 80% or assumed full utilisation of the programme, there was still only a 40% chance the scheme would be cost effective in relation to a NICE threshold of £30,000.
Tenders for the work are being developed and the NHS Commissioning Board will lead on promoting telehealth when it assumes its full responsibilities in April next year.
“Telehealth not only saves lives, it transforms them, so that people with a long term condition can feel in control of their life,” said Board chief executive David Nicholson.
The pilot scheme will give the Board an insight into how best to extend technology to any patient managing prolonged ill health or a chronic condition, he concluded.
The seven ‘pathfinders’ are:
- Worcestershire (3 CCGs and Worcestershire County Council)
- NHS Merseyside
- North Yorkshire & York and Humber PCT Cluster (will involved the CCGs as they develop)
- NHS South Yorkshire & Bassetlaw (Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Bassetlaw PCTs but will include CCGs as they develop)
- Kernow CCG and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly PCT
- NHS Kent & Medway (8 Kent CCGs, Kent Community Health Trust and Medway Unitary Authority)
- CamdenCCG(withUCLPartners).
Adam Hill
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