February 2010: WSD Programme update
WSD programme update
Prepared by Mike Clark
On 10 December 2009, WSDAN hosted its fifth event in the current series at the Park Inn, Manchester. The event included a status update from the WSD programme, a review of some new case studies from the Newham programme, and a presentation from Professor Stan Newman and Anna Davies (University College London) on telecare and telehealth evaluation.
WSD programme – status update
Gurpreet Dulai and Tim Ellis provided an update on the status of the WSD programme. There are currently 6,191 people on the trial across the three sites (Kent, Cornwall and Newham). Of these, 5,721 are telecare and telehealth users (with roughly half in the control group) and 470 are carers. Trial participants are followed up after 3 months and 12 months and data are collected on trends, alerts, admissions and feedback from interviews. Additional information was presented on people withdrawing from the trial and work under way to learn from the WSD programme.
Newham case studies
Sheena Hobbs, from the Newham demonstrator programme, stressed the importance of providing case studies of telecare and telehealth users to improve local awareness and develop training programmes for a wide range of stakeholders. The involvement of users, carers and staff in the programme is of particular interest. Sheena explained Newham’s approach to capturing case studies, and previewed a number of new videos that will soon be available on the Newham website: www.newhamwsdtrial.org.