Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to ensure equitable patient access to proven remote diagnostics to support home testing.

The Department and the National Health Service are prioritising the improvement of connectivity and digitisation across all aspects of diagnostics in order to drive efficiency, deliver seamless care across traditional boundaries and facilitate remote reporting.

The first four phases of the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care award included innovations in remote diagnostics, including the Neuronostics Limited smartphone-based app which can receive electroencephalogram recordings from wireless headsets to assist with assessing epilepsy treatment; Senti Tech Limited’s project enabling remote chest examination for respiratory patients through sensors embedded into a jacket; and Healthy.io UK Limited’s smartphone albuminuria self-test, which uses a home test kit and a mobile app to allow patients to self-test at home with clinical grade results.

NHSX is supporting the COVID Oximetry @home services which remotely monitor the oxygen saturation levels of patients with COVID-19 symptoms. This offers both technology-enabled and standard services with paper diary and telephone check-in for those without smartphones. In some areas, devices are provided for people to use in their own homes. NHSX are also supporting the scaling of remote monitoring approaches across the seven regions in England. This includes a focus on vulnerable groups such as those living in care homes.