O2 Health: Improving efficiencies on the front line of NHS care

Managing Director Keith Nurcombe discusses why O2 Health believes that technology can help mobilise community care teams in order to improve patient care

The issue of social care funding continues to hit the headlines, warning us of the negative prospects to the future of the social care system and the impact that this will have on public spending and the growing number of patients who will require care. This week, The Guardian featured an article about, how the NHS can do more with less, which is something we are keen to explore here at O2 Health.

The NHS has been deemed ‘unaffordable’ in its current state and tasked with finding £20bn worth of ‘efficiency savings’, increasing the pressure on the quality and standard of its care. Additionally, the Government is unable to decide how much money is needed to care for the elderly, with ministers saying that they are unable to commit to the £2bn a year figure proposed by The Dilnot Commission.  Despite all of this, unbelievably £1.4bn of the £1.7bn not spent by the Department of Health in England in 2011-12, has been taken back by the Government rather than being ploughed back into the healthcare system. Surely this would have been an opportunity for the Government to look at potential future solutions to make the healthcare system more efficient?

Here at O2 Health we believe that through mobile technology we can improve the standard of healthcare in terms of mobilising community teams to offer more efficient practices, which could potentially save money and time. It would also allow for healthcare professionals to spend more time with their patients, resulting in a better standard of care and therefore better outcomes for patients.

O2 Health offers a number of different solutions to make organisations such as the NHS more efficient through new ways of working with mobile technology.  Telehealth services allow healthcare professionals to spend less time on paperwork and more time with patients, therefore improving patient care which is at the heart of what O2 believes. Through mobile telecare patients can lead more independent lives whilst also helping reduce A&E admissions and hospital stays, and freeing up more time for carers.  Simple efficiency solutions such as electronic pens can allow important information to be easily recorded, cutting work load for healthcare professionals and resulting in more time to focus on the patient.

The ever increasing pressures and constraints facing health and social care services, due to a growing elderly population, means there is clearly not a one-size fits all solution. However, O2 Health believes that if the Government invested more of its seemingly ‘spare’ cash to make healthcare services more mobile, through new technology, money could be saved, time spared and patients provide with a better standard of care.