Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

13.39 The potential advantages of telehealth and telecare are said to include low
admission rates to hospital and lower mortality rates. 36 The Government has
indicated its continued support for such applications of technology. 37
Provisional view
13.40 Distance provision of services can undoubtedly bring benefits to those who may
not be able to access easily the services they need, such as disabled people.
However, the use of the internet or remote devices raises regulatory concerns
because of the way in which those services may be delivered.
13.41 In terms of internet pharmacy, it is arguable that the availability of unregulated
products should not be a primary concern for professional regulatory bodies,
particularly where the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
already exists. However, we acknowledge that the professional regulators have a
legitimate concern where individuals are providing potentially harmful services or
products. The issue for us is whether our statute can or should help the
regulators deal with the issues that arise from the provision of such services. It
may be that the role of domestic law is limited in being able to address an issue
which arises at the international level or that other agencies are best placed to
address this issue.
13.42 In terms of telehealth and telecare, the principal regulatory concern is that the
individual making clinical decisions is appropriately qualified to give advice and
suggest certain treatments. This may be relatively straightforward when the
advice is being provided by a practitioner based in the UK, but this may be more
difficult to monitor where the practitioner is overseas. There would clearly be
public safety risks associated with inappropriately qualified individuals performing
this function. Other problems that may arise include matters of confidentiality and
disclosure.
13.43 We welcome suggestions about how our statute may enable the regulators to
manage these issues, or whether they are issues for the regulators at all.
Question 13-8: How might our statute enable the regulators to manage the
issues that arise from distance service provision?
36
Department of Health, Whole System Demonstrator Programme: Headline Findings -
December 2011 (2011).
37 HM Government, Investing in UK Health and Life Services (2011) p 13.
232