The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 1 (Feb 2014) | Page 40

Rising Costs of Chronic Condition Management
UK

UK

Can mHealth Provide Answers
to the Rising Costs of Chronic
Condition Management?
equivalent to climate change. It
is putting pressure into the system, which, unless we change the
way we address the problems, will
overwhelm the system,” says McShane.
“This is the biggest problem facing the health system and the care
system and the costs are growing year on year. They are huge
already and they will continue to
grow.”
The soaring number of people
with long-term medical conditions such as diabetes and dementia is threatening to “overwhelm”
the NHS, one of the health service’s most senior figures warns.
The challenges posed by patients
with chronic medical conditions
are so great that they represent
the “healthcare equivalent to climate change” and must force the
NHS to undertake a major rethink
of how it cares for such patients,
Dr Martin McShane says in a recent interview with the Guardian
Newspaper in the UK.
Looking after the 15.4 million
people in England with at least
one long-term condition already
takes up 70% of the NHS’s
£110bn budget – £77bn – as
well as £10.9bn of the £15.5bn
spent on social care in England,
he says. The costs are so huge

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February 2014

that the NHS could become unsustainable unless it gives those
with long-term conditions better
care, with much of it provided by
GPs performing enhanced roles
rather than hospital doctors, says
McShane, NHS England’s national director for people with longterm conditions.
McShane is responsible for those
ongoing illnesses or diseases that
see patients become regular users
of NHS services, through checkup