More recently, an editorial by Fiona Godlee reflects on the process. In a nod to the frustration of the long wait for the publication by the BMJ she starts “Science has an annoying way of not finding what you were hoping for. Governments that try to do the right thing, by evaluating innovations before rolling them out, may well get frustrated when the studies they have funded take time to reach a conclusion, when journals take time to peer review and publish them, and especially when the published findings aren’t clear cut or compelling…they don’t quite live up to the Department of Health’s premature and glowing announcement of the ‘headline findings’ six months ago–that telehealth will save many lives and a great deal of money. The announcement concluded with plans to collaborate with industry to roll out telehealth across the NHS. The trial’s actual findings were more nuanced…” It’s worth reading the full item: BITMEDICO · newsletter di Informatica Medica. (Paywalled in BMJ)
There is also a report from the Westminster Health Forum session [TA item]. In the BMJ’s NHS boards see telehealth only as a means of saving money, warns expert. The headline references Andrew Corbett-Nolan, chief executive of the Good Governance Institute. Beyond the paywall, Angela Single, chair of the Three Million Lives (3ML) working group is quoted as saying that “patients would be ‘banging on the door’ of GP surgeries to get access to telehealth if they knew how much it could save lives…businesses were ready to support the NHS to ‘industrialise telehealth’ but financial barriers to adoption had to be reduced.”