Early adopters sought for Health Direct service

The Department of Health (DH) and NHS Direct are looking for primary care trusts interested in being the early adopter site for NHS Health Direct, the DH’s new multi-media health advice service.

The government’s 2004 white paper on public health, Choosing Health, set out the intention to establish Health Direct and the DH now plans to launch the service in an early adopter site from October this year followed by national rollout next year.

The service, now called NHS Health Direct, is to be run by the health advice service NHS Direct and will offer advice on healthier lifestyles via the internet, mobile telephones and digital TV.

Services will include a personal health assessment tool, information on local health improvement services and opportunities, content on major healthy lifestyle issues, user generated content such as chat rooms, forums, and blogs and user registration for personal updates via e-mail and SMS.

The early adopter programme is to focus on healthy choices related to physical activity, diet and alcohol with the full range of health improvement information, including sexual health, mental health and smoking, covered when the service is rolled out nationally.

The DH and NHS Direct say they are looking for one or two primary care trusts which provide both an area with health inequalities and a neighbouring area with a wider social mix.

The early adopter programme is to be independently evaluated covering areas such as NHS Health Direct’s impact on knowledge of healthy lifestyles, attitudes to health, planned behaviour change and intention to use services. The evaluation will also look at consumer and stakeholder reactions to the service, user preferences for channels and content, effectiveness of marketing approaches, and assess how realistic and achievable the key performance indicators are.

The guidance adds: “Crucially, the learning from the Early Adopter will be used to inform the case for funding from 2008-9 onwards, to be made during 2007 under the Comprehensive Spending Review. Justification of the level of funding and appropriate spending mix will be highly dependent on the findings from the Early Adopter, strengthening the need to commence the pilot as soon as possible in 2007.”

Strategic health authorities need to suggest PCTs in their area who might be interested by 9 February.

Guidance on early adopter programme for NHS Health Direct

http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/14/20/85/04142085.pdf