Update on France’s pioneering digital home care approach, with a trip to Nantes

It was a real pleasure to visit Nantes this week, to attend a major French conference on behalf of my client Doccla. Nantes provided an impressive backdrop as a delightful, foodie city and I’m keen to return for a longer trip.

I started the day at “Boulangerie Arno” on the advice of my Booking.com host - sampling a caramelised buttery Breton treat known as Kouign-Amann with my cafe to give me plenty of energy for the busy day ahead.

Doccla has recently celebrated caring for its first French patient - bringing the countries they are in to ten - and having become market leader in the UK and Ireland is looking to expand similarly across France.

It was really interesting to learn more from the French clinicians and other French staff about their experiences and what they are looking for. We heard about everything from Respiratory services in Toulouse to Cardiac care in Normandy, and met some fascinating French start ups that could be potential partners.

France has been a true pioneer in Europe in digital home care having established its first reimbursed TeleHealth programme in 2018. If you’d like to know more about the recent history, see this blog I wrote earlier this year -

France - flying the flag for digital home care

Essentially, the French government have established a system whereby any French doctor who believes their patient could benefit from remote monitoring can prescribe it, and use the product of their choice from the national accreditation system, ANS. I wish the UK governments would do the same and enable many more people to benefit across the NHS.

We participated in the session on International comparators and it was fascinating to compare the approaches to the remote management of a single condition - such as Heart Failure - across Germany, USA and France - and see the similarities and differences of the approaches.

It’s also great to see the evidence really pile up on the efficacy of tech enabled home care, across the globe, and hear direct from some of the lead investigators. These longer term studies are now demonstrating mortality differences, alongside many others, with markedly reduced mortality in those that participate in the remote monitoring programme, particularly those that commit fully.

Our session was held in the largest room of the conference and was well attended by a largely senior medical audience.

Introduced by Céline Lavaud - VP of Operations and Delivery at Doccla and pictured above - my talk was to share the NHS experience in increasing digital home care significantly since the pandemic, including a 50% increase in the past 12 months, such that virtual wards are extending the acute bed base by >10% in the NHS in England. I discussed the impact we are seeing in reducing readmissions and increasing patient confidence in the cohorts being supported in large scale evaluations.

I then covered how the beauty of a solution like Doccla is that it caters for people living with multiple morbidities rather than having the restrictions of a single condition technology (which is currently the case in France) and shared that there were now over 4 million monitored patient days with stunning satisfaction levels from patients (95% rating the service good or very good).

I should mention that in a first for me, my talk was delivered in French. Huge thanks to Melanie and Céline for their help, support and encouragement that enabled me to do this, including recording it so I could be sure my pronunciation wasn’t trop mauvaise!

There followed a terrific talk from Dr Alain-Gil Mpela who is the clinical lead for Doccla’s first patients in Paris, at DMU GHSIF MELUN . He very clearly explained how it is working, the different components and the benefits they seek. Mélanie Foissey then outlined some impressive achievements from Doccla clients and how these are highly replicable in France.

We ended with a lively Q&A where happily my French colleagues covered the questions beautifully. Then a flight out of Nantes Atlantique in blue skies, inspired by the acceleration to digital home care in France, and sincerely hoping it’s not too long till I get a chance to return - a bientot!

Doccla France