Future’s digital for healthcare, says tech tycoon

The Harrogate-based businessman said inHealthcare has the potential to transform the patient care of millions of people.

The new service uses phones, apps, text messages and mobile devices to connect patients at home with medical teams to create a “virtual clinical environment”.

It allows clinicians to automate monitoring, self-care and behavioural change programmes.

The resulting data is held in a secure online system called Patient Record in the Cloud (PRiC).

Mr Wilkinson said inHealthcare can remove “a humungous amount of mundane functionality” from the lower level of the NHS by freeing up skilled staff to give better patient care.

At the same time, the service empowers patients to look after themselves, he added.

Mr Wilkinson is one of Yorkshire’s most successful entrepreneurs. He has launched, built up and sold a number of technology businesses, including Planet Online, Freeserve and Sports Internet.

He told the Yorkshire Post: “As a businessman, people might say I have been vaguely successful over the years with one thing after another after another after another.

“But if you ask me which one I am proudest of it would be Freeserve because that was something that made a big difference to a lot of people.

“Making money is one thing about being a so-called entrepreneur, but making a difference actually does matter.

“I’m 59 this year. I am really looking to do something to make an enormous difference to people as my last one.”

Freeserve was Britain’s first internet service provider for consumers. It was free and made its money from dial-up charges.

Bryn Sage, chief executive of inHealthcare, said inHealthcare can bring change to the NHS in the same way that Freeserve changed the internet.

Mr Sage said: “In general, industry works on improving its quality, otherwise it loses its customers, and its efficiency. It’s bringing that experience to bear into the NHS.”

Mr Wilkinson’s inTechnology business acquired the goodwill and assets of United Telehealth last year and subsequently launched inHealthcare.

It has launched seven applications to date to monitor conditions like diabetes, undernutrition and high blood pressure and plans to launch more by the summer.

Saneth Wijayaratna, chief scientific officer at inHealthcare, said: “The Patient Record in the Cloud gives the flexibility to create these applications, these new automated pathways, to support multiple parts of the NHS.”

Government ministers believe that three million people with long-term health conditions in Britain can benefit from being monitored at home.

But moves to introduce telehealth and telecare services have proved controversial. In North Yorkshire, NHS managers had to write off 2,000 hi-tech devices as worthless only three years after buying them in a £3.2m initiative.

Mr Wilkinson said inHealthcare is superior because it provides a service rather than a product and works through multiple channels.

Mr Sage said: “Apple didn’t make mobile phones (when the current telehealth framework was established). Look how the world changes in that period.”

Mr Wilkinson said: “I really believe that with the technologies we have got, the brainpower we have got, the technical knowledge we have got, coupled up with the medical skills, we can take three million people out of mundane functionality at the bottom of the NHS.

“It will be alleviating an enormous blockage.”

He added: “It won’t save any jobs, but it will free up people to improve the quality and the whole experience.”

The company provides its services to NHS bodies in Durham and East Lancashire and is in talks with other healthcare providers.

Mr Wilkinson said: “We will keep pumping away. We have invested more than £2m so far and are prepared to invest a lot more.”

He expects to make a good return, but said he would not seek to profiteer from the NHS.

“Profit is fine; too much profit is immoral,” he said. “To me, you need to make a fair profit to sustain your business, to invest back in your business.

“Profiteering is immoral. There’s a difference. I think there’s a lot of profiteering going on in the NHS.

“What really matters is making a difference for the people who work in the NHS and who rely on the NHS. If we make a sensible profit out of that I think that’s fair enough.

“We are prepared to put our money where our mouth is. We are making all these investments.

“Utilising investments we have made in inTechnology we are talking about investing tens of millions of pounds in this.

“We have a history of really good technical innovation and delivery,” said Mr Wilkinson, citing Freeserve, Planet Online and inTechnology.

“We really care about what we do.”