Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
- Date:
- 1996
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Information society : agenda for action in the UK : evidence received after 31 March 1996 / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![23 April 1996] [Continued INDUSTRIAL TRAINING Companies are already looking to the information superhighway to help them provide ongoing training for their people. One element of City Media Network Services is an alliance with Video Arts to make their training videos more readily available. HEALTH Remote health services are being developed, both at the information provision and remote expert level. Teleconferenced Medical Consultations. A trial based in North London is studying the impact of low-cost video conferencing over ISDN2 for remote patient referrals by GPs to secondary health care. It involves the Whittington Hospital London, the Royal Free Hospital London and 10 GP practices. Health Net Programme. BT is currently exploring telemedicine opportunities under its HealthNet programme and has been a key player in the following trials: the Minor Injuries Link at the Riverside Trust, Westminster, to enable on-line access to remote expertise at the Belfast Royal Infirmary. It is proposed to extend the system to enable the establishment of peer self-help groups; the Immediate Care Link to connect a GP practice in Peterhead with a consultant at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary; and the remote foetal monitoring sysem to transmit real-time foetal ultrasound images over the ISDN30 network from St. Mary’s Hospital, Isle of Wight, to Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London. _ Prescription Databases. On a more administrative basis, BT is currently working with regional health authorities to trial services for GPs such as prescription databases with the possibility of evolution into on- line access to patients’ notes and a broader range of diagnostic support services. SOCIAL SERVICES By using information technology to make information available to the public, social services will be able to free-up resources to focus on more personal care. Information Needs of People with Disabilities. BT has funded a study of the information needs of people with disabilities, the elderly and their carers. This study showed the particular importance of accessible information to these groups of people. One aspect of the work being funded by BT is a study of the possibility of remote unobtrusive monitoring of the elderly to give them greater independence in their own homes. It is thought that this will allow for the early warnings of the onset of health problems and thus allow for many of them to be remedied without the need to remove the person from their home, thus enhancing the quality of life for the elderly and significantly reducing care costs. QUESTION 3 Who will supply these services to consumers in the United Kingdom? How can the participating companies be categorised and what is the nature of the commercial relationships between them? How are suppliers likely to develop? What service standards exist and how are they likely to evolve? COMPONENTS OF SERVICE PROVISION There are four main elements to service provision. Customer Equipment Suppliers. Customer equipment includes TV sets, satellite dishes and set-top-boxes used to interface to broadband networks, PCs and their software, modems used to access the Internet, telephones and facsimile machines. Suppliers include consumer electronics companies such as Sony and Philips, set-top-box suppliers such as Apple, PC companies such as IBM and Compag, and software providers such as Microsoft. Telephony handsets are retailed by BT but also by many other suppliers such as GPT. Cellular handsets are supplied by Motorola and Nokia among others. Networks Operators. These include the cable companies and BSkyB, offering broadcast services, the PTOs, such as BT and Mercury, and Cellular network operators including Vodaphone, Cellnet, Orange and One- 2-one. Internet providers include the universities and the Microsoft Network. Service Providers enable services to be provided over networks and information to be stored and retrieved. They also package materials, for example by creating TV broadcast channels from individual programmes. Existing service providers include broadcast entertainment operators such as the cable operators and BSkyB (who are vertically integrated with their network operator business), and the BBC and ITV. The Internet service providers such as Demon come into this category although they straddle the service/network operator boundary as they also provide gateways into the Internet. This sector also includes companies that provide home shopping (Home Shopping Channel) or telebanking banking services (First Direct). Content Creators includes film and TV programme makers, new organisations and publishers. Content creators include Warner Brothers and Carlton, book and journal publishers such as Wiley and news agencies such as Reuters and The Times. 258649 C](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218631_0051.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
