Healthlines Study
The Healthlines study: Expanding the role of NHS Direct in the management of long-term conditions
Aim
To develop, implement and evaluate new programmes of care via NHS Direct for patients with long-term conditions (LTCs) and to provide evidence about the benefits and costs of these initiatives. Intended benefits of these new forms of provision are to: improve health outcomes for patients; facilitate self-management; improve patient experience; improve cost-effectiveness of care provision. The programme focuses on two exemplar conditions: depression & high cardiovascular risk.
Team
- Professor Chris Salisbury, University of Bristol (PI) and team
- Professor Cathy Pope, University of Southampton and team
- Professor Anne Rodgers, University of Manchester and team
- Professor Alicia O’Cathain, University of Sheffield
- Dr Simon Brownsell
- Professor Jon Nicholl
Funder
NIHR Applied Programme Grants.
Funding: £2,000,000 (£400,000 to Sheffield).
Time period: 1 November 2009 for 5 years.
Summary
As the population is getting older, more and more people are living with long term conditions (LTCs) such as asthma, diabetes and depression. The number of people affected is so large, and is increasing, that the NHS needs to explore new ways of working. There is great interest in the potential of `telehealth´ (based on technologies such as the internet and the telephone) to improve care for people with LTCs.
In England, we already have a national service, NHS Direct, which combines services based on the telephone, the internet and digitalTV. At present, NHS Direct passively provides information, but it could have a much bigger role in actively reaching out to people with LTCs. The aims of this research programme are to find out the type of services that people with LTCs would like NHS Direct to provide, the types of people who would find this most useful, and then to develop suitable services and to test whether they work.
We have focused our programme on (a) patients at high risk of having a heart attack or a stroke and (b) patients with depression, as examples of two different types of long term condition.
Our research programme includes 5 linked activities. We will:
- review all the best international evidence available about the role of telehealth in LTCs to develop ideas about how NHS Direct might usefully improve care for LTCs.
- interview people with LTCs about ways in which NHS Direct could help them to look after themselves and also interview health professionals about how it could help them manage LTCs.
- conduct a survey of people with our exemplar LTCs about difficulties they have accessing care, their needs, and types of care they would like from NHS Direct, so that we can identify the types of people most likely to benefit from NHS Direct care for LTCs.
- work with patients, professionals and NHS Direct itself to develop new programmes of care and support for people with our two exemplar LTCs.
- invite people to register for these new programmes of NHS Direct supported care, and compare the benefits and costs of these programmes versus usual forms of care. We will measure the benefits in terms of better health and quality of life, healthier lifestyles and peoples’ positive experiences of their care, as well as measuring the costs both to patients and to the NHS.
If these new programmes are successful they could quickly be rolled out nationally, thanks to the existing NHS Direct infrastructure, to benefit large numbers of people.