Michael Barnett in Marketing Week reports on a move by O2 Health (the year old healthcare brand of Telefónica UK’s O2) to launch it’s first consumer marketing push later this year.

“The brand will shift its marketing focus later this year to consumers with the introduction of a mobile alternative to the panic buttons supplied by care services to frail and elderly people in their homes”

This move by O2 Health is being led by Managing Director Keith Nurcombe (who rejects the word mHealth as a mere “buzzword”) with a “new product… …available to younger people who do not currently have access to panic buttons from health authorities, as well as to older patients” which suggests to me that it’s likely to be an O2 branded Lifecomm device:

Knowing about Keith’s appreciation of the GP Video Consulting opportunity and thinking about the enormous range of consumer focused mHealth opportunities that the UK’s largest mobile operator (generating revenues of £6 Billion in 2010) could launch with, it amazes me that they’ve plumped for an emergency focused service first – especially as most of the industry knows all about Orange/France Telecoms bad experience in this space.

I wouldn’t be completely surprised to find that their lawyers have told them it’s a good idea 😉