Telehealth-MC (v1.0)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Telehealth to reduce compound pressures on the NHS and social care

• IRAS ID

  357404

• Contact name

  Eduard Shantsila

• Contact email

  Eduard.Shantsila@liverpool.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Liverpool

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 11 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  Why?
  Mersey Care (MC) Trust serves a diverse population of more than 1.4 million, of whom 35% live in deprivation, across Cheshire and Merseyside. In 2011/12 MC rolled out a telehealth service for people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Heart Failure and Diabetes. The service is provided in patient’s homes, using an app called ‘Doc@home’ and devices to help monitor health conditions, help patients manage their conditions and to prevent the need for hospital admissions. The service may expand to include mental health care, before planning any changes we need to know whether the telehealth service provides effective care that meets patients’ needs.

  What?
  We will answer four important questions about the MC telehealth service:
  1. Does the telehealth service prevent unplanned hospital/doctor visits, and does this vary by social group and health condition?
  2. Do patients using the service report better quality of life, mental health and wellbeing and does this vary by social group and health condition?
  3. What makes it harder or easier for a hospital to use telehealth?
  4. Is telehealth good value for money, given any cost savings or health gains?

  Who and where?
  We will use routinely collected MC patient data, telephone interviews with staff and patients and surveys with patients to answer the questions.

  How?
  We will analyse routinely collected de-identified patient data to examine the impact of the service. We will collect and analyse survey data to find out if patients using telehealth report, for example, different levels of wellbeing or quality of life compared to those not using telehealth. We will interview staff and patients about their experiences of the service. We will look at the costs of telehealth and emergency services (with and without telehealth) and compare this to patients' outcomes to understand the cost-effectiveness of the service.
  

• REC name

  North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  25/NW/0268

• Date of REC Opinion

  16 Sep 2025

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion