the Minister Paul Burstow’s keynote speech. The speech was full of the usual warm stuff about how significant telecare and telehealth is, so that was not the reason for its significance.

It was because he gave an outrageous plug to one company – Tunstall. This endorsement was highly inappropriate in a Ministerial speech, particularly as it was not just confined to the hall but was being streamed to viewers around the world.

The other suppliers in the hall, particularly the principal sponsors, must have been very cross once they were over the shock. It was probably also more ‘evidence’ for the conspiracy theorists [I’m not one of them: Editor Steve] who believe that it is Tunstall, and not the Minister, directing the UK Government’s policy on telecare and telehealth.

The ultimate twist to this gaffe is that, just a few minutes before, the Minister had been criticising services that stockpile kit. It is not a secret (apart from to the speech writer, perhaps) that stockpiling kit is a characteristic of a number of Tunstall’s large-purchase customers!

To his credit, the Minister risked taking questions from the floor. I asked about the contrast between his support for the 3millionlives initiative and his lack of support for the use of telehealth with prisoners [TA item, scroll to bottom]. His reply, in relation to prisoners, was “Ministerial edict is not the best way to make sure something happens”…so why is he pronouncing on 3millionlives? The words ‘cake’, ‘have’ and ‘eat’ come to mind.

Other than that, there were some interesting presentation topics during the rest of the day and I will follow them up in future items.

UPDATE 8 March 8am: Full text of the Minister’s speech here. Heads-up thanks to Mike Clark.

UPDATE 8 March 10:30 am. Tunstall milks it: Press release. Paul Burstow MP advocates NHS Gloucestershire and Tunstall’s work…

able to live with multiple and contradictory notions heads swirling around their heads, so no one seemed to mind.

Professor Stan Newman, still gagged by the conventions of peer-reviewed journal publishing and still not, therefore, able to reveal any significant WSD results, talked about results that have been in the public domain for some time. These concern the numbers of GPs and patients recruited into the WSD trials. The most striking finding was the lack of people in the cohorts who required both telehealth and telecare equipment. “We couldn’t find them” he said. Attendees were left with the impression that either people with both needs do not exist in the population or that services tend to ‘prescribe’ what they know; either telecare or telehealth. However, I gleaned outside the session that they were there, but they were people who were particularly prone to decline to participate because they feared that answering the study’s health questionnaires was a threat to their social care services and benefits.

Clearly, there is going to be much debate over interpretation when the full results are published.

The session by Professor Jeremy Wyatt was more thought-provoking than its title (Using Evidence to innovate in clinical practice and self care: role of randomised control trials) led one to expect. He emphasised that amongst all the data analysis the question ‘What does this mean to the patients?’ needs to be asked. For example, for a particular set of telehealth users, the technology may enable them to make more informed rejection of treatment, leading to an increase in mortality. Without understanding that, the researchers may assume the increase to be a negative outcome. If that were the case, how would you build a business case on the evidence? [Head swirling, editor Steve retreats to bed.]

The Congress starts today. You can still register (free) to attend the main sessions as a virtual attendee, as they will be streamed live again this year. (It’s great marketing for future conferences! You also get to visit the Virtual Exhibition.) When you do, join in comments on Twitter with hashtag #kft12.