Reducing admissions for long-term conditions: is telehealth the answer?

In December 2011, the Department of Health (DH) released a bulletin on the early findings from the telehealth Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) sites. The WSD programme is the world's largest telehealth trial, involving 6191 patients and 238 GP practices at 3 UK sites. The study focused on three conditions; diabetes, COPD and coronary heart disease. At first sight, the outcomes are impressive - certainly good enough to warrant the announcement to be made by the Prime Minister, who fully endorsed telehealth and announced its potential to benefit 3 million patients per year.