Urgent NICE consultation: a great opportunity (UK)

December 21, 2014 | by

This is a plea for any reader interested in the future success of medical apps in the UK to take a few minutes over Christmas to respond to a consultation request from the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE), which this editor has just been made aware of. The triennial consultation on the role of NICE opened in early December and closes on 2nd January – a very short time-frame as it covers the Christmas period!

Details are here. There is a form to download so it is not a challenging task to respond.

Many readers will be aware of this editor’s campaign following extensive research, to widen the remit of NICE to include reviewing the efficacy of medical apps. This is so that doctors can confidently recommend and indeed prescribe (NICE approved) medical apps without fear of liability, in the same way that they currently do for drugs. In addition, when discussing treatments with patients, doctors can then compare the efficacy of apps and of drugs for those conditions – such as depression, anxiety and pain relief – where apps can likely do the job better, at lower cost, with no side-effects. At a stroke this would reduce the cost of drugs to the NHS and take the UK to the forefront of the mobile health revolution.

If you can spare the time over Christmas you would give one person a very Happy Christmas; many thanks in anticipation.

The NICE way to a long and healthy life

August 21, 2014 | by

The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) has produced truly excellent draft guidance entitled Dementia, disability and frailty in later life – mid-life approaches to prevention.

As pointed out by David Oliver’s Kings Fund blog, which alerted this Editor to the NICE document, what is particularly exciting about these guidelines are “the principles and linking themes behind them, and the fact that, instead of just advising clinicians, the guidelines include direct advice to the government on health and wider social policy”.

Put another way, this document represents a holistic approach to coordinating the principal health drivers for a long and healthy old age: a major step to helping people achieve the vision of looking forward to old age. The table on page 15 of the draft emphasises just how wide (more…)

Future GP consultation – boring but very important (England)

August 19, 2013 | by | 2 Comments

NHS England has just launched a consultation on the future of GP practices, with a slide set of the case for change and the NHS’s underlying objectives for general practice together with an evidence pack which provides some information about current general practice and health needs.

This is important to everyone who senses that modern technology can help make a real difference to the way care is delivered because there is a serious lack of ambition (more…)