The adoption of telehealthcare in the United Kingdom has been slow and fragmented. This paper presents a structural explanation for this by contrasting contending themes in recent UK health policy. It is argued that the conflict between trends towardsmodernizationand demands forevidence-based practicehave made it difficult for a major policy agency to emerge that can sponsorservice development, and so proponents of telehealthcare have been forced to situate their work within the domain of R&D. This has led to a fragmented field of practice characterized by short-term and small-scale projects.
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