Engineering news
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) report, The Remote Health Management: Reducing Bed Blocking in the NHS, calls for the Department of Health to create a standardised remote health management (RHM) network by 2020.
The report's authors say that had the NHS used mobile and digital tech over the past five years, it would have saved more than £1 billion.
A secure digital RHM network could provide acute and social-care providers with easy access to patient data and remote monitoring, and enable hospitals to discharge patients quicker.
The report makes four key recommendations:
- Improving public awareness: The Department of Health should create a programme of national public awareness to encourage acceptance of RHM technology and home-based services provided by the NHS, before the end of the Personalised Health and Care 2020 initiative.
- Changing culture with the workforce: The NHS should draw upon its existing workforce of biomedical engineers to implement change and increase engagement in RHM systems throughout its services.
- Creating a national RHM network: The department must commit to a strategy for creating an RHM network to integrate acute and social-care sectors by 2020. This needs to ensure implementation of RHM systems is undertaken across both sectors by 2022 at the latest. A key element will be standardisation of RHM technology that enables patient data to be accessed anywhere in the hospital and social-care network.
- Simplifying funding routes and initiatives: The government must ring-fence some of the £20-£30 million identified in the Accelerated Access Review, specifically for developing RHM systems. It should also simplify the routes to funding sources for healthcare technology and create a single pathway to funding.
“In September 2016, the number of people taking up hospital beds reached the highest recorded number since records started in 2010 and has been growing ever since," said Helen Meese, head of healthcare at IMechE. "On top of that, bed blocking cost the NHS £820 million in 2015, which prompted us and our members to think how can we as engineers address this problem?
“We appreciate that it’s one of many options, it’s not a silver bullet, but the opportunity to put technology in patients’ homes would release them from hospital beds.”
The Department of Health declined to comment on the report.
But Jane Hanna, chief executive of SUDEP Action, the charity behind an epilepsy monitoring app, told PE that there needs to be ring-fenced funding for research and development of innovative technologies. "The investment in the EpSMon Epilepsy Self-Monitor has come mainly from bereaved families and their communities that support them," she added.
“Bereaved families have also backed wearable apnoea detection devices to keep people safe at night but again research investment has been lacking in the UK.”
Meanwhile, the Biomedical Catalyst announced up to £12 million funding to support innovative healthcare technologies and processes that could help to prevent disease or better manage and treat chronic health conditions. The Biomedical Catalyst is funded by Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council and Scottish Enterprise.