People Powered Health: How relationships work

New models of care recognise the capacity and value in building strong relationships. A key element in this is utilising peer-to-peer support, such as enabling patients to share their successful management techniques with others.

As well as connecting to peers in a clinical setting, new models of care also connect them to more informal means of support, for example prescribing social activities to connect people with similar experiences or conditions in the wider community. 

This does not discount the importance of interventions that require specialist medical knowledge - rather, capitalising on these untapped non-clinical resources and relationships between people means that professionals are freed up to concentrate their time where it is most needed.

In action:

In Newcastle, they are developing a city-wide approach to social prescribing. GPs and patients first develop a care plan together. As part of this, the GP can refer patients to a health trainer, who links and signposts to all existing informal support available in the community. The health trainer assesses the needs of the patient and connects them to the right service for them, whether it's a gym, healthy eating class or knitting group. This social prescription models sits alongside and complements more traditional medical care.

This is illustrated by a hypothetical patient Margaret, 52, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She was finding it difficult to get out of the house because she couldn't walk for more than one or two minutes at a time. She was socially isolated and house bound, in danger of developing depression as she spent most of her time alone. This affected her COPD as she became anxious when out of breath and was regularly admitted to A&E.

Her GP referred her to the health trainer. They accompanied her to a gym and got an instructor to develop a personalised fitness plan. Over the next few months, Margaret slowly built up to doing 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. She now walks to a knitting group twice a week, where she has met new friends in the community. Her well-being has improved, and although she still gets breathless she's less anxious and calls on friends who are on hand to help.

Find out more about the other three elements of People Powered Health

• Roles
• Services
• Systems

Find out how Nesta and Innovation Unit are delivering People Powered Health