13 April 2011

Yesterday TSA hosted a meeting in London as part of its work on scoping the work for a Telehealth Code of Practice. We had over 25 invited attendees drawn from Telehealth practitioners, technology providers, policy makers, commissioners and Government Departments.

The meeting explored a number of potential service delivery models for Telehealth and then looked at how these processes mapped across to the TSA's existing Telecare Code of Practice.

This work is taking forward the TSA's commitment to develop a Telehealth CoP to support existing and new members wanting to deliver Telehealth services.

Good progress was made at the meeting and there was a clear outcome from the group that Telehealth should not be addressed in a separate code, but in one integrated with telecare. This Government's agenda is to bring greater integration of health and social care so the group's support for a single code - but enhanced to address specific Telehealth requirements - is in alignment with this policy objective.

TSA will now scope what is required to develop the CoP to address Telehealth and then outsource this work. Obviously the work will require regular engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including our members. If you are particularly interested in being part of this engagement please contact me.

I want TSA to be able to present the framework of the new Code, including some of the detailed provision on Telehealth delivery, in November at our conference.

Regards

Trevor Single