Agenda item

The Council’s Head of Insight and Innovation (HII) demonstrated to Members how to use the ‘Borough Data Explorer’, an online tool which allowed the user to compare the borough’s performance to the rest of London and, where data was available, to also visualise performance within the borough’s 17 wards.

The HII then briefed the Committee on an 18-month trial of ‘Appt Health’, an app designed to increase uptake of NHS health checks offered by GPs. It was noted that:

·  The app, which sat in the general practices’ IT systems, automated the booking of health checks by directly sending residents a text, to which they could reply with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to indicate their attendance. The attendance data obtained from this allowed comparisons to be made between wards;

·  The app was being trialled in 17 general practices (which represented a sizable proportion of the local population) to check whether there was evidence for rolling it out more widely;

·  The app had been trialled for five months so far, and there was clear evidence of its positive impact on uptake – round one of the trial showed that 47% of those who received the text immediately booked an appointment, including those who previously did not attend for a health check in the last four years; and

·  Over the last three months, the system had enabled 20 early detections of illnesses which would have become chronic had the resident not attended a health check. If the pattern from round one continued, in the next five years, the app would have encouraged over 37000 residents to attend a health check, leading to 300 extra years of healthy life.

The HII asked the Committee to think about what other health outcomes could be achieved if there was effective sharing of data between the Council and its health partners?

The Council’s Director for Public Health stated that the Council’s aim through this project was to reach people who had an underlying disease (such as high blood pressure, diabetes or cardiovascular illness), but did not think they were ill, because of a lack of obvious symptoms. If the project was adopted and rolled out more widely, there was potential for it to achieve significant savings, as increased uptake of health checks would enable health services to diagnose more people early. This was one of the main goals set out in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. He added that Council representatives would be presenting at the next Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Conference to discuss the positive impacts of the trial.

In response to questions, the HII stated that:

·  The technology was flexible and so could be used to help increase women’s uptake of the smear test, for example;

·  The data used to identify who to target via Appt Health came from GPs, who formed the list based on those who did not respond to a letter asking them to attend a health check; and

·  Communicating with residents via Appt Health was cost-saving compared to other means of contacting those identified – a text message was far cheaper than a telephone call or letter.

The Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration stated that the Council and its partners aimed to continue to find innovative ways of using technology and data to help residents improve their health outcomes. She cited the example of Dr John who, using data obtained from the Borough Explorer, found a link between fuel poverty and lung disease, a finding which enabled service providers to support those identified, which may have otherwise taken longer to address.

The Chair thanked the HII for his briefing and commended the Appt Health trial as it enabled early diagnosis, leading to significant improvements in health outcomes and savings for services.