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CBI Believes Telehealthcare Has Potential to Deliver up to 7 Billion Cost Savings in Health and Social Care
Business blueprint gives telecare and telehealth a central role in restoring public finances
– The CBI has put telehealthcare at the heart of its blueprints for balancing the UK’s budget sheets, reporting that the technology has the potential to achieve public sector cost savings of up to £7 billion by 2016.
The CBI’s latest report, entitled “Doing more with less – a credible strategy for restoring the public finances”, sets out a series of ideas, based on current evidence and best practice, for the government to implement radical reform to the way public services are delivered.
The report states that better use of telecare technology could prevent 70,000 older people entering residential care every year, which would deliver £5-7 billion in cost savings to adult social care budget by 2015-16.
Jon Lowe, UK managing director at Tunstall Healthcare, the leading provider of telehealthcare said: “Where telecare is already in place across the UK, there is strong evidence highlighting the ability of telecare to alleviate the pressure on care providers and deliver significant cost savings by providing care and support in the home. In the first year of its telecare programme, North Yorkshire County Council saved over £1m, which would have otherwise been spent on domiciliary or residential care.
“Essex County Council provides telecare free to everyone aged over 85, and an evaluation has shown that where telecare directly replaced traditional care, for every £1 spent on telecare, £12.60 is saved in traditional care costs, compelling evidence on the economic benefit of integrating telecare into models of care provision.”
The CBI also recommends wider-scale use of telehealth technology to provide home-based support for patients with long-term conditions such as COPD, chronic heart failure and diabetes. Telehealth offers improved community support and promotes a more preventative, proactive approach to the management of long-term conditions to help reduce the need for emergency and secondary care provision.
The installation of telehealthcare monitors for patients suffering from COPD has enabled Sheffield PCT to reduce hospital admissions by 50%. If half of COPD-related hospital emergency admissions across England were avoided - around 50,000 patients - telehealth would deliver total savings of £666m by 2015-16.
Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI commented: “The scale of the required adjustment in public sector spending means that strategic reengineering of service provision is the only way to improve public sector productivity sufficiently, without politically unacceptable cuts in services. The public and private sector should work together to help deliver fundamental public sector reform.”
Telehealthcare supports this goal, by delivering improved, person-centred care in the community setting and keeping people safe and well in their own home. This reduces the need for costly residential care and alleviates some of the pressure on secondary care services, by reducing the number of avoidable hospital admissions.
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