By Suzanna Kerridge, 28 June 2001 16:05
NEWS Patients will soon be able to receive health information and book appointments with their GP through the TV thanks to a pilot scheme launched by the NHS and Telewest. Using interactive TV, patients will be able to scroll for information on a range of health services such as illness, treatment and local hospitals as well as receive health news. Adam Singer, chief executive of Telewest, said: "This is just the start of investment in this area and all it costs is time and intelligence and not the tax payers' money." Birmingham will be the first city to roll out a six-month pilot of the Living Health scheme. This will be followed by three other schemes in London and Hull based on a mixture of satellite and cable technology. Peter Dick, project manager for digital technology at the NHS, said: "Each one is different as each platform is different. We'll run the pilots until the beginning of next year and then take stock and see how people use them, if they liked them and the cost benefits." Cable TV station Channel Health is scheduled to go live in September, said Dick, followed by DKTV's version using cable and satellite links and then Cornucopia Production and Kingston Interactive's Hull-based service. Living Health offers 11,000 pages of NHS accredited information on men's, women's and children's illnesses and advice on dealing with them. It also enables 50,000 Birmingham citizens to make appointments with 14 GPs at a local hospital or surgery. London's City University and the Department of Journalism at Sheffield have been picked to carry out the evaluation. Dick claimed the Department of Work and Pensions - formerly the Department of Social Services - was monitoring the pilot with a view to offering a similar service across the country.
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