DTI says it will back UK telehealth firms

Industry and regions minister, Margaret Hodge has said that the Department of Trade and Industry wants to promote new telehealth technologies that are crucial to managing burgeoning healthcare budgets.

Speaking at the London Telehealth conference this week, Hodges said: “New technologies can help deal with the ageing population in part. The DTI wants to develop a more preventative approach to let patients be able to live alone at home and are working with small businesses and university students to develop such systems.

“The DTI and the DH have a shared vision on how to develop new technologies for health care. We need to develop new ways of working across boundaries. Patients should take much greater control of their health and well being and care for long term conditions.”

The minister said that with more and more people living with long term conditions, the health system needed new ways of providing care for these patients, and with the UK leading the world on network technologies, it should be possible to meet this requirement.

“If we can grasp the challenges facing us in the future, we can do a number of things – improve quality of life, give people confidence to live safely and offer them independence. It is our aim to develop modern healthcare systems to do this.”

She added: “By providing patients with continuity in care, 24/7, we can ensure we are meeting the targets we want. We must all work together to make assistive living possible. Daily involvement by patients will lead to more self-care, and the use of technologies will enable us to do other things.”

Benefits of technology could include bringing carers and healthcare providers closer together and help people who are anxious get reassurance from home, instead of a surgery.

The minister said that the telecare demonstration sites were going well and providing the industry with an ‘innovative platform’ which future technologies should seek to expand on, focusing on supporting patients.

“Design and development should consider patient needs. There are already applications for industry on a national scale which meet tailored local demands. We want to work further to ensure new innovations are explored, and will offer assistive technology funding to projects which could help meet the demands of the future.”