With added pressures on the government to reduce spending in health and social care, local services are feeling the strain to find cost effective solutions that allow residents to continue living at home, reducing unnecessary admittance to residential care and GP callouts. With ongoing budget cuts to community services, the responsibility all too often falls to friends and family to ensure that older or vulnerable relatives are safe and secure in their own homes.

Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) announced that CX50 xMATRIX, the world's first portable ultrasound with Philips' industry leading Live 3D TEE, now offers 2-D Intracardiac Echo (ICE) capability. The CX50 xMATRIX with available Live 3D TEE and ICE is shown in Paris at the EuroPCR, official meeting for the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Inventions (EAPCI), May 21-24.

Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has selected FairWarning® Patient Privacy Monitoring solution. This is part of the trust's strategy to become a leader in meeting the government's target for a 'paperless NHS' by 2018. It will also help to emphasise its reputation as a trusted provider of care.

Building on the activities of eHealth Week 2013, the Centre for Connected Health and Social Care (CCHSC) which is part of the Public Health Agency (PHA), was delighted to welcome delegates from the Finnish Health Care System to the TF3 Telemonitoring NI centre in Holywood to see first-hand the fantastic support being offered to people who live with long-term conditions across Northern Ireland.

Birmingham City Council has celebrated the first anniversary of their joint city-wide telecare service, which has to date benefitted 7,000 people across the city. The Birmingham Telecare Service, which aims to support 27,000 people by 2015, enables residents with a wide range of support-needs to remain living independently in their own homes.

IMS MAXIMS, a leading provider of clinical information systems, is implementing software into NHS trusts that will ensure risk assessments take place that will help to significantly reduce the number of preventable deaths caused by VTE in UK hospitals every year.

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and Main-Taunus Cardiac Center (Bad Soden, Germany) today announced the results of a clinical study that demonstrate that the safety for patients and clinicians can be significantly enhanced during cardiac interventions.