Welcome

Welcome to the online home of the Self Care Forum. The purpose of the Self Care Forum is to further the reach of self-care and embed it into everyday life. On this website you will find information and resources on self-care.

Everyday Healthcare
Everyday healthcare starts with the choices people make from waking up in the morning that will affect their health and wellbeing then and throughout their lives. Self Care Forum member, Dr Pete Smith, defined this behaviour in 2004 as the continuum of self-care.

The Department of Health described self-care in 2005 as “the actions people take for themselves, their children and their families to stay fit and maintain good physical and mental health; meet social and psychological needs; prevent illness or accidents; care for minor ailments and long-term conditions; and maintain health and wellbeing after an acute illness or discharge from hospital.”

Studies on Everyday Healthcare have been conducted in 1986/7, 1996/7, 2005 and in 2009 to show how people in Britain view their health, their sources of advice and information, how they treat commonly occurring conditions and why and when they call on the NHS for such symptoms.

The studies, covering a period of 22 years, show that with the right advice and help people are confident that they can manage commonly occurring conditions themselves.

In addition to the evidence from the studies on Everyday Healthcare, a publication called ‘Helping People Help Themselves’ has found that proactively supporting self-management and focusing on behaviour change can have an impact on clinical outcomes and emergency service use.

The Self Care Forum supports these findings and aims to take the findings further, by encouraging people to think about self-care in a broader sense. Living healthy lives is an important component of self-care, and prepares us to care for both commonly occurring conditions and long term conditions.

‘Helping People Help Themselves’ illustrates that there are a wide range of self-care initiatives that can be used to support different types of self-care. At one end of the ‘continuum of interventions’ there is information about healthy behaviours, while at the other there are initiatives that more actively seek to support behaviour change and increase self-efficacy.

Additionally, these studies show that the doctor is still the most important advisor and health care influence, and that many people are visiting doctors for advice and treatment of symptoms that they could manage themselves.

The Self Care Forum aims to address the findings of these studies by bringing together healthcare professionals and patient groups who are committed to encouraging and empowering people to self-care.

Are you a Champion for Self Care? Do you want to join the Self Care Movement? Email libby.whittaker@selfcareforum.org