On Wednesday evening at the Medilink Business Awards, Inhealthcare were delighted to win for the category ‘Partnership with the NHS.’ This award reflects the success of the collaborative approach with our partners at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) where together we scope and build clinically led digital services.
Our joint partnership NHS Health Call started in 2012 and has proved incredibly worthwhile. Much of our successes to date have come from INR self-testing and undernutrition predominantly, with many more in the development phases.
CDDFT are involved with product development, evaluation, launches as well as offering clinical support. The partnership brings mutual benefits to both parties. CDDFT are able to generate external income for the Trust, and we get the insight of working with a large and innovative Foundation Trust.
Over the past few years, we’ve discovered a lot on our journey to break the UK digital health market and one thing that couldn’t be clearer is that clinical expertise is vital. Telehealth is renowned for its history of failed projects, because commercial organisations often don’t take the time to understand the complexities and drivers of the NHS.
Four years in, our combined efforts have seen huge successes. Our INR programme is now live in five regions across the UK and our undernutrition service in three, and active in over 100 care homes.
Our INR service was highlighted by NICE as an exemplar of best practice. Patients who switched to self-testing increased their “safe” time from 59% to 75% which reduced their chances of a stroke. It also means patients no longer have to attend appointments every 2-3 weeks, so they can go to work or holiday abroad safe with the knowledge their INR is under control.
Our undernutrition monitoring service reduces the average time a patient spends on nutritional supplements from 40 weeks to 12 weeks, and is self-financing through the reduction of inappropriate prescribing – the evaluation saved £19,500 across 130 patients in just 10 months. Imagine the impact if, or dare we say when this services is taken up nationally and at scale. Currently 3 million patients are prescribed supplements in the UK.
A big thanks to the team at Medilink for a great evening. We look forward to the national awards in April.