Connected technologies can help shift the emphasis from sick care to predictive care.

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29 September 2016

Technology can help build a healthy future

Neil Mesher, CEO of Philips Health Care UK and Ireland, says connected health care will transform our lives.

To gain deeper insight into the perceptions of the people working at the core of health-care systems – patients and health-care professionals (HCPs) – Philips recently commissioned an international study that explores how countries around the world are positioned to meet long-term global health challenges through integration and connected-care technologies. The resulting Future Health Index (FHI) aims to examine how “connected care” could help address the global health challenge.

Drawing on data from 13 countries, more than 2,600 HCPs and over 25,000 patients, the report created a league table of preparedness to achieve a sustainable integrated health system through connected care. The UK’s position is ninth out of 13. While we rank highly for access to health care, we fall down in the adoption of integrated health care. People feel that the patient experience could be improved, as could health-care outcomes, and that patients could take more responsibility for their health. So, how can “connected care” address the UK’s key health challenges?

I spend a great deal of time inside the walls of the National Health Service and there are three areas where I believe connected technologies can help the NHS address UK health challenges and make the NHS sustainable for the future.

Homecare: Resources need to be shifted to help people take control of their health and stay healthy at home.

In the FHI, 29 per cent of patients said that keeping track of health indicators and symptoms would make them more effective in managing their health, and nearly a quarter of HCPs agreed (24 per cent). This capability and technology, to help people change their lives for the better, and reduce the pressures on the NHS by empowering patients to manage their own health and chronic conditions at home better, exists now. In a three-year study conducted by Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group in partnership with Philips, supported self-care was shown to reduce emergency admissions by 22-32 per cent for patients with above-average risk. Over 90 per cent of patients also reported feeling more in control of their condition. Providing people with the technology and knowledge to manage their conditions better could significantly reduce pressure on acute care, an NHS priority.

Rapid response: Connected technologies can help detect complications in a patient’s condition faster, potentially leading to improved patient outcomes as well as time and cost efficiencies. For example, the early detection and escalation of clinically unwell ward patients is important for reducing unanticipated critical-care unit admissions. Philips recently completed a pilot study of our Early Warning Scoring system to evaluate its ability to support clinicians by spotting patient deteriorations quickly and automatically sending clinical notifications to Rapid Response Teams, with positive results.

Enabling the adoption of change: The technology and solutions already exist to support the shift from sick care to predictive care, but our systems need to be integrated if the UK is to enjoy a healthier future. The UK is low on uptake of innovation, but the good news is that the government recognises this and is working with industry to update health systems in the Accelerated Access Review (which aims to speed up access to innovative drugs, devices and diagnostics for NHS patients).

We are living in one of the most exciting times in health-care history. I believe that, by bringing together proven medical practice and emerging connected technologies, we can address today’s health-care challenges and shift from a society in which we merely care for the sick to one where technology helps people take control of their health.

› At Labour conference, activists and politicians can't avoid each other – but try their best to "unsee"

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The Staggers

21 November 2016

No, John McDonnell, people earning over £42,000 have not been "hit hard" by the Conservatives

The shadow chancellor's decision to support this tax cut is as disappointing as it is innumerate.

John McDonnell has backed Conservative plans to raise the point at which you start paying the 40p rate (that’s 40p of every pound earned after you hit the threshold) to above £45,000 by April 2017 (part of the Conservative manifesto pledge to raise the 40p rate so that it only covers people earning above £50,000 by 2020).

Speaking to the BBC, the shadow chancellor said that those affected “need a tax giveaway at the moment because the mismanagement of the economy by the Conservatives is hitting them hard”.

Is he right? Well, let’s crunch some numbers. Let’s say I earn £42,000, my partner doesn’t work and we have two children. That puts our household in the upper 30 per cent of all British earners, and, thanks to changes to tax and benefits, we are 1.6 per cent worse off than an equivalent household in 2010. Have we been “hit hard”? Well, no, actually, in point of fact, we have been the least affected of any household with children of the coalition.

The pattern holds for every type of household that will feel the benefit of the 40p rate hike. Those with children have seen smaller decreases (1.0-2.3 per cent) in their living standards that those in the bottom three-quarters of the income distribution. The beneficiaries of this change without children, excluding pensioners, who have done well out of Conservative-led governments but are unaffected by this change, have actually seen increases in their tax-home incomes already under David Cameron. There is no case that they need a bigger one under Theresa May.

But, nonetheless, they’re getting one, and it’s the biggest bung to higher earners since Margaret Thatcher was in office. For context: a single parent family earning £42,000 is in the top 15 per cent of earners. A family in which one person is earning above £42,000 and the other is working minimum wage for 16 hours to look after their two children is in the top 13 per cent. A single person earning £42,000 is in the top 6 per cent of earners.

That’s before you get into the big winners from this policy, because higher earners tend to marry other higher earners. A couple with one person earning £45,000 and the other earning £35,000 is in the top three per cent of earners. A couple in which both are earning £45,000 with one child are in the top four per cent. (Childless couples earning above average income are, incidentally, the only working age demographic to do better since 2010 than under New Labour.)

And these are not cheap tax cuts, either. To meet the Conservative proposal to raise the 40p rate to £50,000 by 2020 will cost £9bn over the course of the parliament, and giving a tax cut to “hard-pressed” earners on £42,000 will cost around £1.7bn.

The political argument for giving up on taxing this group is fairly weak, too. Hostilty to tax rises among swing voters extends all the way up to the super-rich, so Labour’s commitment to the top rate of tax has already hurt them among voters. To win support even for that measure, the party is going to have to persuade voters of the merits of tax-and-spend – it makes no sense to eschew the revenue from people in the top five per cent of earners while still taking the political pian.

Which isn’t to say that people earning above £42,000 should be tarred and feathered, but it is to say that any claim that this group has been “hit hard” by the government or that they should be the target for further tax relief, rather than clawing back some of the losses to the Exchequer of the threshold raise and the planned hike in the higher rate to £50,000, should be given extremely short shrift.

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman. His daily briefing, Morning Call, provides a quick and essential guide to British politics.