Telehealth can provide benefits to patients, healthcare providers, and to community projects. This award will recognise the organisation that demonstrates the most innovative use of use of information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver health services, expertise and information over distance.

2022 Winner: Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust - 2nd Opinion Service

Developed with clinicians and launched earlier this year, Alder Hey’s Second Opinion service allows its experts to offer peer-to-peer advice to clinicians treating children and young people in other countries. It can provide access to high-speed interpretation in 65 languages, including sign language, which is available at any time during the consultation.

Commended

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust - Immedicare
St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - Virtual wards
NHS Arden & GEM CSU; NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB - Shine program
West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust - Virtual hospital model

2021 Winner
TEC Cymru | Digital Health Wales - Video Consulting Service

In March 2020, the Welsh Government commissioned TEC Cymru to establish the NHS Wales Video Consulting Service. The initiative was unprecedented and fast-paced. In the first seven weeks, 87 per cent of GP practices were technically enabled, trained and ‘live’. Shortly after, VCS rolled out to secondary, therapies and community care services, followed by dentistry, pharmacy and optometry. This unparalleled service has now surpassed over 260,000 consultations, across more than 100 specialties. TEC Cymru embedded evaluation right from the start; KPIs, as well data driven reporting and evaluation – which is usually limited to small datasets – were adopted and embedded from the outset. Rigorous evaluation of the new service took place, and a total of 22,978 clinician and patient surveys and 178 semi-structured interviews with clinicians and patients were analysed.

Commended

Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust - Patient Telehealth App
Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - Robotic Surgery Telementoring
Liverpool City Council / Medication Support Company - Remote Medicines Management

2020 Winner
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Traditionally, patients attending their outpatient appointment would be assessed and supplied with a prescription to be taken to the outpatient pharmacy. However due to the pandemic, the majority of outpatient consultations have been taking place over the phone or using other technology, meaning it is not as easy to get medication to patients who need it. Pharmacists at Newcastle Hospitals were the first in the UK to use an ‘electronic prescription service’ for their patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The service – previously only available to GP practices and community pharmacies – allows electronic prescriptions to be sent to any community pharmacy in the country. As teams looked to explore new ways of working and fewer patients coming into hospital, the pharmacy team at the RVI were given the opportunity to use the scheme as a pilot. As part of the trial, prescriptions were sent electronically to the patient’s community pharmacy where they were dispensed to be collected or delivered to their address if people were unable to leave home due to shielding.

Commended
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust
NHS Arden & GEM CSU
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals
 

2019 Winner

Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - Remote referral system

Moorfield’s cloud based referral platform reduces unnecessary ophthalmologist referrals. It allows two way communications between community optometrists, general practitioners and ophthalmologists. Both clinical and imaging data is shared with the ophthalmologists in a secure and trusted manner. The ophthalmologists can then then remotely triage the patients to which eye care service they require and automatically communicate this information to the patients and their carers. The platform also enabled Ophthalmologists to prioritise more urgent referrals that require more timely treatment to reduce the likelihood of vision loss. As a result, 52 per cent of patients initially classified as needing a hospital referral pathway did not need a specialist referral.
 

Commended

Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust - Livernerds Lab
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust - Digital Care Hub
Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust - Telehealth app

2018 Winner

NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group - Quest for Quality in Care Homes

A five‐year project involved equipping care homes in Calderdale, Yorkshire with sensor‐based equipment designed to monitor residents and alert staff to those in need of assistance. The initiative saw sensors installed in key locations such as nears beds and doors, which were triggered when movement was detected. At the same time, care home residents were provided with fall‐detecting wearables and ‘intelligent pendants’, the latter of which enabled individuals to call for assistance from nursing staff when needed. Alerts from the equipment were sent to pager‐like devices carried by care staff.
 

Commended

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust / NHS Leeds CCG - Teledermatology
St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust - Stroke Review Service
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - Florence Simple Telehealth system (FLO)

2017 Winner

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust - Telehealth in Care Homes

Nurses at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust recognised rising numbers of acute admissions and Emergency Department (ED) attendance from care homes, which led to avoidable hospital stays in some instances. Care home residents are now able to access remote consultations, reducing the need for GPs to visit care homes. Residents are triaged through the telemedicine system and where possible their issues are addressed by nurses working in the hub.
 

Commended

NHS South Sefton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) - CHIP
Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust - Cancer Telehealth
Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust - UTI Telehealth
East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) - REFRAME PROJECT

2014 Winner

Stoke on Trent Clinical Commissioning Group/Partners

Stoke-on-Trent CCG’s Simple Telehealth (STH) is an intuitive, personal, self-monitoring and alerting tool which uses familiar mobile phone SMS text messaging to collect patient observational data and offers real time advice or guidance to the patient according to the information sent in. Simple Telehealth is affordable and deployable on an unequalled scale across an unrivalled range of conditions and pathways with the SMS text messaging free to patients signed up. Simple Telehealth and its licensed service ‘Florence’ (Flo) is a multi-award winning NHS innovation developed and owned by the NHS. The system helps to: improve adherence with treatment regimes through encouragement, reminders and interactive contact and to boost clinical productivity.

Commended

East London NHS Foundation Trust: Telehealth EU accreditation
Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust/Bristol City Council: Reablement Service