Someone please tell us these figures are wrong (“Two hundred seriously ill people in Blackburn with Darwen could soon receive new Telehealth Units…Blackburn with Darwen Council and NHS Blackburn with Darwen have invested £500,000 on technology which will promote self-management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Heart Failure.”). Or is the article, which goes on to praise pendant alarms just completely off-beam?
If it is true that they are planning to spend £2,500 per patient – shades of WSD costs here – have they not researched the market? ‘Telehealth’ units on the way to Blackburn with Darwen patients. Lancashire Telegraph.
UPDATE: 12:00 Tuesday Little birds tell me that, indeed, the Blackburn with Darwen story is not what it appears. The £500,000 may be the contract cost for their whole telecare service which they re-tendered. There are suspicions that the specification was written to skew the result and that the telehealth kit was ‘thrown in’ to sweeten the deal.
Glowing press release from Tunstall, the current service provider.
TA item on telecare tendering practices Dirty tactics in the telecare/telehealth market (UK) (Nov 2009)
Or why doesn’t North Yorkshire and York (NYY) lend them some of the 1,600 unused units they bought several years ago. Oh, hang on, Yorkshire…Lancashire maybe it’s too much to ask!
In fact, why isn’t NYY giving its unused kit away anyway before it becomes obsolete?
Once again, impressive ‘cost diversions’ no actual saving of money though that can be used elsewhere.