Roger Jones’s editorial1 described primary care in the context of accessibility, effectiveness, and care that is provided personally, and concluded that creative solutions are needed. More than 15 million people in England have a long-term condition or disability for which there is no cure, and these people account for at least 50% of all GP appointments.2 Peer support is a self-management activity3 with the potential to improve self-care while reducing demand for primary care appointments. Work on an online community of patients with stroke revealed that up to 95% of information and support requests were answered on an individual basis.4 Responses received by peers were accurate and appropriate. At a time when GP surgeries are working at and beyond capacity, and patients are finding it difficult to obtain appointments, these online forums can provide a way for stroke survivors and their carers to receive helpful advice and support. As the NHS has been challenged to develop and benefit from digital health, primary care research should explore online patients’ communities as potential self-management interventions. Such interventions could take up part of the service demand for information and indirectly improve access to primary care.
The use of online peer support within the NHS will be driven by providing research evidence that it is a cost-effective way of improving patient health and welfare. Outstanding questions to be answered include:
How do effective online patients’ communities form and maintain over time?
What are suitable outcome measures for measuring effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of online peer-to-peer self-management?
What part of healthcare demand can be safely dealt with by online patients’ communities?
How can online patients’ communities be effectively policed to protect individuals from online risks?
- © British Journal of General Practice 2016