we had said that the £3.2 million cost of the procurement had been split two-thirds to the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and one-third to the PCT. In fact the SHA’s contribution to the cost was only £1m. This still throws no light on how the [heavily overspent] PCT could find £2+ million for the purchase and ongoing costs, or why the deal was structured as a one-off purchase instead of planning a series of incremental purchases in the wake of a successful rollout.
In addition, in the accompanying email, the PCT’s spokesperson said: “I’d like to make clear that although David [Cockayne] was leading the Telehealth project, the decision to award the contract to Tunstall was made by the Board of NHS North Yorkshire and York, on which David was a non-voting member. David was not present at the Board when the decision was made.”
North Yorkshire Telehealth
I’m afraid that the latest press release from the PCT merely confirms that they made a terrible mistake in buying far too much of the wrong kit at the wrong time. What they have bought is probably right for a few hundred patients with Long Term Conditions but wrong for the vast majority of them – so no wonder they have deployed so few systems over the past 6 months. Had they sought professional advice (as opposed to the sales pitch of Tunstall) then they would spread their purchases over a period of time, and taken advantage of the recent collapse in prices to get a much better deal for the tax payer. In particular, they would have invested in rival technology platforms for diabetics using mobile phones. These would have cost a fraction of the price paid for the RTX monitors and would have encouraged people to be active and get out and about.
The early results are of course encouraging, but are no different (and no better) than those that have been reported from telehealth pilots up and down the country for the past 4 or 5 years. In my opinion PCT board members who approved this purchase should hang their heads in shame and should at least look into the option of returning half their equipment to Tunstall for a refund.
NYY PCT responds to Telecare Aware item: The £3+ million telehealth spend that has achieved…what?
How can one draw a conclusion of 40% reduction in hopital admission based on 91 patients? What is the control group? Is this another knee jerk reaction to show savings without proper analysis?
Since only a few units have actually been used, when does the warranty and support runout and one has to pay more to use them?