Cost effectiveness of telehealth for patients with long term conditions (Whole Systems Demonstrator telehealth questionnaire study): nested economic evaluation in a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial

Editor

It would seem that the emperor has no clothes. There has been relentless, shameless plugging of telehealth and telecare in the Health Service Journal all year, in a succession of features, many sponsored by the sector manufacturing the technology. At no point did the HSJ have the courage to have an open BMJ-style debate so that the sceptics could have their say. Despite the Department of Health being the sponsor of the Whole Systems Demonstratorresearch, government officials (usually silent "behind the scenes" figures have selectively leaked and spun partial data from the Whole Systems Demonstrator Sites work before it has been subjected to peer review - in contravenention of the governnment's own guidance on conduct of sponsors for centrally funded research. And there has been a desperate rush to push us towards a "3 million lives" uptake of the technology, clearly driven by a far too cosy relationship with the for-profit companies manufacturing it. Meanwhile "technologies" which do have a substantial peer reviewed evidence base behind them such as comprehensive geriatric assessment for frail older people (Ellis, Whitehead et al BMJ 2011) are not relentlessly promoted - as they stand to make no money for the "medical industrial complex". Shame on the DH - who really should no better than to be plugging a policy with no evidence and then trying to spin the evidence to support it. Shame about peer reviewed publication in medical journals as opposed to blatant marketing in the HSJ eh?

David Oliver