Telecare eNewsletter March 2014

Welcome to the March 2014 newsletter from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) HealthTech Knowledge Transfer Network and the Telecare Learning and Improvement Network.

Launched October 2005, our free monthly newsletter is now distributed to 48,000 subscribers in the UK and worldwide via e-mail and archived at www.telecarelin.org.uk. You can also find highlights on Rebelmouse (daily) or by following Mike Clark on Twitter (@clarkmike).

With over 900 news and events links over the last month, we hope that you find this newsletter useful.

Indications are that money is getting tighter and services are being affected in the NHS as well as social care with recent worrying reports from the National Audit Office, Nuffield Trust/Health Foundation. This presents a challenge for the new head of England, Simon Stevens and the proposed pooling of £3.8bn health and care resources as part of the Better Care Fund Plans commencing in 2015/16. Early indications are that 60-65% of the 151 plans could include telecare and telehealth developments. Meanwhile there are movements to increase access to online medical records and also to provide technology into hospital/community settings through the Nursing Tech fund. Scotland and Wales have both recently announced investments in telehealth (Scotland - £10m and Wales - £9.5m). A report from the recent Health and Care Innovation Expo appears in an extra supplement this month along with a supplement covering UK telehealth and long term conditions. The care.data debate continues for another few months as guidance is made more robust and legislation enacted to handle the concerns raised. The Care Bill is expected to complete its journey through Parliament this Spring and work will be underway in social care to assess self-funders. April 2014 also sees the limited commencement of health personal budgets in England. On the conference scene, the ALIP Economic and Business Modeling Workshop brought together three years of work recently and the Aktive Project has new reports and a conference in April 2014.

For weekly news, updates and information, you can register with the Technology Strategy Board, ALIP group and the dallas sub-group and follow the HealthTech KTN. You can follow the dallas programme on Twitter at @dallas_connect. 3 Million Lives is on LinkedIn. You can also access a Twitter Stream via the TelecareLIN website.

There are three supplements this month - the normal monthly links supplement together with further supplements covering telehealth and long term conditions and the recent Expo in Manchester.