This report was commisioned by the Research and Development Division (RDD) of the Department of Health to survey activity in the UK, to identify the barriers to progress and to make recommendations for the development of telemedicine.  It contains a detailed appendix on telemedicine projects in the UK, from which this database in constructed.

A Review and Assessment of Telecare Activity in the UK and Recommendations for Development

This review of Telecare Activity in the UK is commissioned by the Department of Health and follows an earlier review of telemedicine activity carried out by the same authors.

For the purpose of the Review, telecare can be defined as:

"...the use of information and communication sytems to give patients with or without their healthcare professional or informal carer access to information sources wherever they are located...."

The telecare process frequently takes place within patients' place of residence and this is common characteristic of the examples found in this study.

Following the earlier study, the research proceeded via structured interviews, literature searches and information retrieval from the Internet and involved several of the practitioners who participated in the telemedicine survey.  However, it soon became clear that telecare extends beyond the medical sector and it was necessary to reflect the work of groups across a wide spectrum of public and private organisations including, for example, the hospice movement and providers of community alarm systems.

The results discovered 14 major telecare projects which fall into three distinct catagories; medical (outreach services from the secondary and tertiary sectors), technological (using communications to improve the quality of life for the elderly) and social (housing and social services organisations discharging their duty of care).  Only recently have these groups perceived a commonality of pupose and whilst there are good examples of collaboration there is a lot to do at a strategic level.  

Many of the projects are supported by EU programmes and the review discusses funding issues and compares the position of telecare in the UK with circumstances in Europe, the USA and other countries with advanced information infrastructures.  The comparisons show that UK telecare lags behind its application elsewhere except in one area, community alarms systems, where local authority and private initiatives demonstrate a powerful new way of delivering care in the community.

The report also considers in detail the cost effectiveness of telecare and concludes that many of the claims made for inreased quality of services and savings in delivery are justified.  Interestingly, telecare services often bring other tangible benefits to enhance the well-being of patients and to support inividual living and to overcome remoteness.

Barriers to the expansion of telecare in the UK are also considered and the Review concludes with specific recommendations for the development of telecare.  These recommendations emphasise the need to build upon existing strengths via greater coordination between service providers and by the development of a broad economic model to define costs and benefits more carefully.