O2 exits UK telehealth market

O2 Health has taken its telecare and telehealth devices off the market, saying there has been poor uptake of the service.

The company has announced that its range of mobile health devices – ‘Help at Hand’ and ‘Health at Home’ – will be discontinued and O2 will stop providing support services to existing private and NHS customers by the end of the year.

“The uptake of mobile telecare and telehealth in the UK marketplace has been slower than anticipated,” the company said in a statement.

“For these reasons, the difficult decision has been taken to withdraw these two products from the UK marketplace.”

Help at Hand, a mobile-enabled pendant or wristwatch connected to a secure website and alarm receiving call-centre, was piloted by Devon Partnership NHS Trust and Leeds City Council in 2012.

Following the successful pilots, O2 launched the product to the high street in March this year.

The Health at Home telehealth service consists of a range of devices that monitor patients with heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

At the Health at Home launch event, Nikki Flanders, the managing director for O2 Health said: “We are on the cusp of a technological revolution and we are determined that O2 is going to be at the forefront of this revolution."

The devices are used by several NHS organisations and patients who will now lose the service.

Some of these have invested time, money and resources in helping O2 to develop the platform.

“We fully appreciate and thank all our customers and partners for the time and investment made in working with us to deliver these products to end-users,” a statement added.

“We will work closely with our customers and a case-by-case basis to assess how we can support them with their transition planning, prior to the service ceasing on 31 December 2013.”