Telecare eNewsletter September 2014

Welcome to the September 2014 newsletter from Innovate UK (previously Technology Strategy Board), 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 800 news and events links over the last month, we hope that you find this newsletter useful.

At the halfway stage through the year, significant deficits are being reported in the NHS based on the first 3-4 months and concern continues to grow over waiting times. The King's Fund has published a new report (Barker Commission) on the future of health and care services with some important conclusions. Along with other reports from Health Foundation, Demos, Age UK, Carer's UK many worrying aspects of health and care delivery are being highlighted. Investment in new types of health and care tech, apps and medical devices is at an all time high around the world and innovations are appearing almost daily, however, evidence and robust evaluations are still not compelling or sufficiently cost-effective enough for service commissioners to decommission existing services and invest in new transformed service arrangements. On the consumer front, smartphone updates and new smartwatches are appearing weekly but there is no breakthrough device or platform yet that could be adopted at scale. As Autumn progresses, we await a number of conferences (Telecare Services Association, DHACA, Royal Society of Medicine, Innovate UK), the TECS toolkit (following a recent letter from Sir Bruce Keogh) and a further round of the technology fund from NHS England. To help track what is happening in Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS), the Google site map is being updated - tell us about your local programmes and projects. Autumn will also see the next stages of the Long Term Care Revolution Programme unfold - read more about progress to date in this newsletter.

For weekly news, updates and information, you can register with the Technology Strategy Board, ALIP group and the dallas group. You can follow the dallas programme on Twitter at @dallas_connect. You can also access a Twitter Stream via the TelecareLIN website.

A Links Supplement is available this month in two formats - pdf, doc