FAQs

1. What is the Whole Systems Demonstrator?
2. Where did the programme take place?
3. How big was the study?
4. Who evaluated the programme?
5. How much was invested?
6. Which suppliers were involved?
7. What equipment was provided?
8. What was the client base?
9. How was the programme evaluated?
10. What were the themes of the evaluation?

What is the Whole Systems Demonstrator?

• promote people’s long term health and independence
• improve quality of life for people and their carers
• help people manage their own health and maintain their independence
• improve the working lives of health and social care professionals
• provide an evidence base for more cost and clinically effective ways of managing long term conditions.

Return to top of page

Where did the programme take place?

In May 2007, teams in Kent, Newham and Cornwall were awarded Department of Health Funding to examine how best to implement telecare and telehealth services.

Cornwall

• The poorest County in England
• Population >500,000
• 10.3% of population aged 65+
• 21% of the population report a limiting long term illness

Kent

• Area of broad socio-economic variation
• Population 1.37m
• 17.3% of population aged 65+
• High levels of target illnesses (HF/COPD/Diabetes)

Newham

• One of the most deprived areas in the UK
• Population circa 300,000
• 8.5% of population aged 65+
• 17.3% of the population have a limiting long term illness

Return to top of page

How big was the study?

The study covered 6,000 patients in the largest randomised control study of its kind in the world.

Return to top of page

Who evaluated the programme?

A consortium of universities undertook an evaluation of the programme assessing its clinical and cost effectiveness:

• University College London
  www.ucl.ac.uk
  Professor Stan Newman (Principal Investigator)
• Martin Peerson, Hirani Shashi
• London School of Economics
  www.lse.ac.uk
  Professor Martin Knapp, Catherine Henderson
• University of Oxford
  www.ox.ac.uk
  Professor Roy Fitzpatrick, Dr Helen Doll
• University of Manchester
  www.manchester.ac.uk
  Professor Anne Rogers, Dr Peter Bowers, Dr Caroline Sanders
• Imperial College London
  www.imperial.ac.uk
• Professor James Barlow, Dr Jane Hendy
  Dr Richard Curry
• Nuffield Trust
  www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk
  Dr Jennifer Dixon, Professor John Billings, Professor Michael Kenwood
• University of Birmingham
  www.birmingham.ac.uk
  Professor Chris Hann (Coordination Role)

Return to top of page

How much was invested?

The Department of Health invested £31m in the WSD programme.

Return to top of page

Which suppliers were involved?

Tunstall was the telecare solution supplier across all 3 sites. Telehealth solutions were supplied by Tunstall in Cornwall, Viterion in Kent and Philips in Newham.

Return to top of page

What equipment was provided?

Telecare

Participants across all sites received a Tunstall Lifeline Connect or Connect+ base unit and personal pendant together with any number of appropriate sensors from the 27 available which can be classified into 4 broad categories:

• Personal health and wellbeing sensors (bed/ chair occupancy sensors, enuresis sensor, epilepsy sensor, fall detector, medication dispenser)
• Sensory impairment aids (big button telephone, wearable vibrating alert)
• Safety and security aids (bogus caller button, key safe)
• Environmental monitoring sensors (carbon monoxide detector, heat sensor, flood detector)

Telehealth Cornwall

Tunstall mymedic home monitoring system, a small device with an LCD screen, response buttons to allow navigation of symptom questions and transmission of educational messages to participants, plus relevant peripherals to monitor vital signs.

Telehealth Kent

Viterion V100 home monitoring system

Telehealth Newham

Philips Motiva Personal Healthcare System.

Return to top of page

What was the client base?

Evaluation focused on 3 groups across the 3 sites:

• Individuals with healthcare needs of any age who are at risk of current/future hospital admission, due to at least one of the following conditions: heart failure, COPD, diabetes
• Individuals with social care needs aged 18 and over
• Individuals with both health and social care needs as defined above

Return to top of page

How was the programme evaluated?

• 6,000 service users in the evaluation in 4 groups
• 2 year evaluation period
• Intervention groups and control groups to assess the impact of Advanced Assistive Technology (AAT) in addition to ‘usual care’ i.e. both groups receive the same care and the only difference is that the intervention group are also receiving AAT
• Real time and pragmatic
• Cluster design: minimises administration when compared with individualised randomisation. GP practices are basis for randomisation
• Randomised controlled trial: this guards against ‘regression to the mean’, whereby changes observed after an intervention would have occurred anyway

Return to top of page

What were the themes of the evaluation?

Theme 1 – Service Utilisation

Does the introduction of telehealth and/or telecare result in reduction of utilisation and costs of care?

Theme 2 – Patient Outcomes

Does the introduction of telehealth and/or telecare result in improvements in patient outcomes?

Theme 3 – Cost Effectiveness

What are the economic consequences of introducing telehealth and telecare?

Theme 4 – Patient and Professional Experience

What are the experiences of users, carers and professionals to the introduction of telehealth/telecare?

Theme 5 – Service Delivery and Organisation

What organisational factors facilitate or impede the sustainable adoption and integration of telehealth/telecare?

Return to top of page