Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the adoption and regulation of telehealth and tele- medicine services in the United Kingdom, and specifically with reference to its National Health Service (“NHS”). The discussion and analysis reveal waxing and waning ambitions on the part of the government over the past century, resulting in a patchwork of telemedicine services and light touch and disparate laws and regulations. More recently, however, and in the wake of Covid-19, the Department of Health and Social Care has committed to fundamentally and completely “digitally transform” health and social care in the United Kingdom. This ambition will be the most profound transformation of health and social care in the United Kingdom since the establishment of the NHS in 1948. Such a transformation does not only require a robust technological foundation, but also an extensive, comprehensive, and inte- grated legislative and regulatory framework.