At last I’ve discovered some snippets of information about one of the WSD project sites: Cornwall’s plan is revealed in two newsletters apparently aimed at GP practices and now published on the council’s website. Regular readers of Telecare Aware will know that since the announcement of these important projects I’ve been prodding at the issue of the secrecy surrounding them. At the end of September I was informed by the Department of Health that no information was available as “All three sites are currently working on detailed implementation plans. These are soon to be submitted to the Department of Health for review and sign off.” (Item 1st October) This is still the position on the DH’s WSD website.
However, just two-and-a-half weeks later, after what must have been a record-breaking sign off by DH, the Cornwall WSD team sent the first issue of their newsletter (file date 17 October), containing many details of the project, to GP practices in the county in search of practices to participate.
The newsletter reveals that:
1) There will be a mixture of telehealth, telecare and ‘light touch’ phone contact monitoring.
2) The home telehealth element will concentrate on blood pressure, weight, temperature, capillary blood, glucose and pulse oximetry monitoring.
3) The telecare will comprise “An extended range of active and passive sensors and devices such as bed occupancy, activity, falls sensors, and medication reminders” to support frail adults, including those with dementia.
4) Trained telephonists will make regular scripted calls to patients identified as low risk on the community matrons’ caseload, to support self management. Not part of the national study, but evaluated locally. [So when is a whole system not a whole system?]
5) The national evaluation will be carried out by the University of Coventry and The Kings Fund, and led by Professor Chris Ham. [See first comment on this post for an update.]
6) The project will run for two years starting in April 2008. Involving 1,000 patients using telehealth, 7,500 for the ‘light touch’ phone programme and 1,500 for telecare.
7) There will be a small-scale trial during January – March 2008.
The second newsletter, dated 22 November, announces a ‘Whole System Demonstrator roadshow’ (for community matrons, respiratory/heart failure/diabetes specialist nurses, GPs and practice staff, district nurses and social care co-ordinators) to take place on 13th December – yesterday, by coincidence.
This further reveals:
1) That they hope to involve a minimum of 30 GP practices in the randomised controlled trial.
2) Participating practices will be expected to share their Quality and Outcomes Framework data to help the team identify potentially eligible patients.
3) People eligible to receive telehealth and/or telecare will be:
- adults with severe COPD, diabetes, heart failure or comorbidity, risk-screened using the Patients at Risk of Readmission (PARR) tool
- frail adults who do not have one of these long term conditions
- frail adults with one or more of the selected long term conditions
4) 2,000 people are needed to run the trial, including a control group of 665.
View or download both newsletters from the Cornwall County Council website.
LATE ADDITION: An interview with Andrew Forrest, the WSD Programme Director in Cornwall, in an eHealthInsider story, also published today, reveals that they have found it hard to sign up GP practices.
Now, what about some information from Kent, Newham, or their technology providers, and the Department of Health?
Re. the WSD evaluation. The approach is still being discussed and should be finalised shortly. The evaluation will be carried out by a consortium including the King’s Fund, Imperial College, UCL, LSE and Manchester and Oxford universities.