Dear Colleagues

Since its launch at the British Science Festival in September, there has been considerable activity to develop and establish ICE-T - International Centre of Excellence in Telecare*.

The operational structure and management is being put in place, recruitment is underway and we are in discussion with our showcase site stakeholders to establish these sites. ICE-T’s website build is in progress and we are expanding further our contact database of over 800 companies, academics, clinicians, health and social care practitioners and funding organisations involved in the telecare sector. ICE-T has exhibited at the Southern Institute for Health Informatics conference in Portsmouth and at TSB’s Innovate09 in London. We have presented at two NHS National Institute of Health Research conferences and attended the Telecare Services Association’s annual conference. ICE-T also participated in a TSB ALIP invitation-only workshop to validate the technical standards approach to Telecare interoperability.

ICE-T Events and Projects

ICE-T has also organised several of its own events. In conjunction with South East Business Innovation and Growth, ICE-T ran a seminar/networking event on 8^th October on ‘Open Innovation: Realising Communication and Technology Solutions for Health and Care’. On 1^st December ICE-T, on behalf of the Technology Strategy Board, organised an invited workshop to influence and inform the specification of upcoming TSB ALIP calls in Economic and Business Modelling and Social and Behavioural Studies. On 4^th December, Dr Clive Bowman, Medical Director of Bupa Care Services, discussed the challenge of making technology work commercially in care, with 40 telecare and technology companies.

One of the roles of ICE-T is to support innovative telecare projects. We will use ICE-T events to identify market opportunities and, through workshop discussions, to define potential areas of activity that would develop these opportunities and meet the inherent challenges. We will then specify projects of interest and issue a call for match-funded collaborative proposals.

If you want to meet the organisations with the market opportunities and influence future ICE-T project calls, then be sure to attend our events. We have a very full programme for 2010, which will be published shortly, but first in your diary should be ‘Access ICE-T Millions!’ on Tuesday 2^nd February 2010 at Leatherhead Food Research.

Our first call for project proposals will be launched at this event, plus we will be announcing two European and Regional voucher schemes for Telecare SMEs, an ICE-T funded bursary scheme in conjunction with Oxford University, progress towards an equity fund for e-health and funding through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. We will inform you of a 450,000Euro European project that ICE-T has won, plus there will be an update on the ICE-T showcase sites and the launching of the ICE-T website and membership opportunities.

A full and informative day – not to be missed! Further details will follow in the New Year but if you wish to register now for this event please contact claire.ansett@sehta.co.uk.

For further information about ICE-T please visit our website.

*In ICE-T we define Telecare as the use of information, communication and sensor technologies to deliver health and social support to people, to help them live as independently as possible in the lowest intensity care setting consistent with their needs and wishes.

If you would like to get involved in ICE-T and want to be kept informed of ICE-T workshops and initiatives please email Katy Lethbridge by clicking here.

Dr Richard Curry

e-health Development Director

Katy Lethbridge

e-health Development Manager, SEHTA

Dr David Parry

CEO, SEHTA