At arm's length

Ahead of the long-awaited reporting from the UK Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) telehealth projects, Audit Scotland provides a review of the issues and looks at programmes north of the border. There's some compelling evidence on the use of telehealth to avoid hospital admissions for people with COPD. The King's Fund has published the third in a series of papers on the experience of implementing telecare and telehealth across the 12 WSD Action Network sites, which takes a more cautious view of the options for implementing telecare nationally. According to the King's Fund, significant cultural and organisational barriers may present more of a challenge than the development of the technology. Meanwhile the Good Governance Institute takes a much more bullish approach, although, like the King's Fund report, does suggest that this will only work if accompanied by systemic change.