Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential benefits of using mobile telephone apps to use GPS to locate trained resuscitators and atrial fibrilation equipment to bring a rapid response to those who have suffered a heart attack.

Jane Ellison

The development of mobile device based Apps are being considered by NHS England across health and care settings and are still in development and launched the Health Apps Library in March 2013.

NHS England is taking a leading role on apps in a number of areas:

– Health Apps Library: In recognition of needing to support patients and the public in knowing which apps they can trust and that are safe. Only apps that have successfully completed a clinical safety review process are listed.

– Overall United Kingdom Apps Review Framework: In recognising the need to help apps developers understand what review and regulation they need to go through, NHS England, the Health and Social Care Information Centre and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are jointly working together to create an overall review framework for health apps.

– Integrated apps: The future direction of apps is to move from lots of individual apps for specific purposes that are not linked to “integrated apps” that brings different pieces of information together.

Sudden and unexpected cardiac arrest remains a major public health concern in all countries and can affect all ages.

Defibrillators that can save many lives within minutes of the event are widely available, but rapid location of these and also trained community responders is an urgent and unmet need. Apps have been developed and several are in use but they will not achieve their full potential until integrated into a national scheme which NHS England is considering.