Telecare/Language: repsonse

Mike, my feeling is what you say is partially applicable, and this in fact hits at the heart of what Guy was trying to say.

Paracetamol is a headache/cold remedy that the vast majority of people are familiar with and quite happy to buy in the supermarket and self prescribe/administer. But if you need to take the maximum advised dose, over an extended period, then you should probably be seeking advice from a medical practitioner on your condition. Also, no supermarket will refuse to sell you a large enough supply, that you could actually do harm to your self with.

The point of that analogy is that paracetamol is a medicine and everyone understands that and what is meant by that, and who the people are that we should turn to for advice on how much and when, especially when we have taken the enclosed advise to its limit. But it remains our personal responsibility to do so, as we judge appropriate to our circumstances, as it falls well within the remit of expected self-management. Between this and obvious emergencies like sever trauma, there is a grey area where we seek advice from our GPs and others.

Assistive technology assists!! This covers everything from labour-saving kitchen appliances to deep brain stimulators and between these 2 extremes there is a very large grey area where the general public need a lot of information, advice and support.

If we don't remain clear on what we mean by 'assist', 'care', 'monitor' and 'treat', then this process is going to become a lot messier before it ever becomes clearer and my feeling is that we will doing the general public a dis-service.