John Prové, 68, from Oxfordshire, is among the first patients to have benefited from mobile phone health monitoring. When he was found to have bowel cancer in 2005, he joined a trial evaluating two chemotherapy drugs in combination, and the system was used to assess side effects.

“[We] were issued with mobile phones programmed to take us through a questionnaire about symptoms twice a day. The phone sent our responses to a computer, which analysed the results. If symptoms had deteriorated significantly the system alerted a member of the nursing staff, who could call the patient. I found the sense of being monitored this closely very reassuring.”

Mr Prové, a semi-retired garden centre owner, added that the system was especially good because it took the onus to report changed symptoms away from patients, who are often uncertain whether to bother doctors and nurses.

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