£2.7m European funding to improve eHealth in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

The University of Plymouth along with Cornish and national partners are aiming to improve the use of eHealth in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
Ehealth graphic - image courtesy of Shutterstock

The University of Plymouth and a collaboration of Cornish and national partners have been awarded £2.7million European funding to improve the use of eHealth in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. 

The project, known as eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC), will involve doctors, nurses, care homes, patients, University academics and small companies in the region to help find the best uses of the internet, apps, and robotics in health and social care. 

Funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), EPIC runs for three years.

Initiatives could include the use of video calls to better connect care home residents, development and implementation of apps that support people wanting to make positive behavioural changes, care robots to comfort people with dementia, or even the use of drones to get emergency equipment to rural locations quickly. 

The collaboration includes Kernow Health CIC, Cornwall Partners in Care, the patients association, South West Academic Health Science Network, and Creative England, who will work to find technologies that can best help improve services, along with those which are, or can be, produced within Cornwall. 

Professor Ray Jones on the importance of the EPIC project:

The idea of the project is to develop and use eHealth - such as websites, technology and apps - to improve health and wellbeing in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and, where possible, make sure that the eHealth solutions are made there too.

Find out more about EPIC

The ERDF grant pays for seven project posts, support for small technology companies and an EPIC Challenge Fund of £600,000. Grants from this fund will support small and medium-sized enterprises based in Cornwall, offering the potential to create new jobs and support business growth.

Project staff will support clinicians, patients, carers and others in bidding for funds from the Challenge Fund to develop and test their ideas.

The project will cover all of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly but have bases in general practices and care homes in St Ives, Redruth, and Liskeard as well as University centres in Truro. 

Dr Dan Rainbow from Stennack Surgery in St Ives explains why the project will be beneficial for the county: 

“After 15 years of working with patients in this community, it’s obvious that there are gaps in certain areas where I’m sure technology has a role to play in helping to support our patients,” he said. “I think technology has had a fairly chequered history in the NHS over the years, and it’s exciting to work with people who understand the technology to build up a way of working with our patients from the grass roots upwards to make it work in practice.”

Project director, Ray Jones, Professor of eHealth at the University of Plymouth, said: 

“This is a great opportunity for Cornwall to become a centre of excellence in the use of technology for health and social care. It involves people with a range of expertise from across the University, including nursing, medicine, psychology, robotics, business, and public health, working with numerous collaborators across Cornwall and taking a ‘bottom up’ approach to find or develop technologies that will improve services.

"The project involves an international link with universities in Brisbane, Australia. At the end of three years we hope to have found new ways in which Cornwall can ‘export’ its expertise or services to the rest of the UK or beyond while also effectively delivering health and social care for the whole of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.” 

A series of webinars are being delivered for people to find out more about the eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC) project.

The first, which gave an overview of the project, took place on Wednesday 10 May 2017. 

eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (EPIC)

EPIC is a collaborative project partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund with additional financial support from the South West Academic Health Science Network. The University of Plymouth and partners aim to improve the use of eHealth in Cornwall.

We aim to improve the use of technology in both health and social care hoping:

  • to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
  • and improve the Cornish economy in this sector. 

The EPIC project started in May 2017 and will run for three years.

Follow @EPIC_eHealth on Twitter.

European Union European Regional Development Fund logo with SWAHSN logo