Press release
Forget-Me-Not launches new solution to help patients cope with the current healthcare crisis
Summary
Forget-Me-Not launches across the UK this month with its NHS compatible care packs designed to help people proactively monitor their own health, self-treat minor illness at home, and better manage long-term conditions. While giving them the confidence to know when and where to get medical advice when they need it.
Forget-Me-Not provides reliable advice based on NHS sources online combined with practical tools in a straightforward paper-based format – offering a simple-to-use alternative for those struggling with digital systems.
Forget-Me-Not care packs aim to help medical teams by:
• reducing consultations for minor illness
• directing patients to the appropriate medical services
• speeding up diagnosis through effective patient self-monitoring
• improving treatment outcomes.
The healthcare crisis
Post-Covid pressures are making it increasingly challenging for patients to access NHS services. With appointments now at a premium, many are instead turning to self-diagnosis and treatment. A survey1 published in January 2023 revealed that one in four people recently bought their own medicine (either online or at a pharmacy) after failing to see their GP face-to-face, and for the same reason nearly one in five (19%) have gone to A&E seeking urgent medical treatment.
In these circumstances, clear and helpful ‘self-care’ information and tools are essential. But they’re not always easily available, practical or suitably specific. This is the need that Forget-Me-Not care packs directly address.
Kerstin Rivett
That’s the need Kerstin Rivett is aiming to tackle with her newly developed set of guides and tools. Forget-me-not is an initiative inspired by her own personal story.
“About 10 years ago, frustration led me to set up my own spreadsheet to monitor my blood tests alongside my symptoms. The GP system online didn’t seem to convey the historical picture in a patient record – they could only view limited blood test results. By creating my own historical record, and then sharing this with my GP, I really helped them understand my symptoms, speed up the diagnosis and get the right treatment.
“Having learned from that experience, I did something similar when my 70-year old mother became seriously ill. Despite seeing her GP for three years, she became so unwell I moved her here to Thriplow to look after her at my home. This meant a completely new healthcare team (GP Surgery, A&E and consultants). To help them, I pulled together an A4 summary sheet of her medical history: symptoms, test results, all the investigations that had been done to date, and so on. This enabled the new team to diagnose relatively quickly that she had in fact been suffering with Lymphoma.
“My family’s experiences have shown me there’s an unmet need for reliable and useful offline tools to help people manage their symptoms and health at home. That’s why I’ve decided to create Forget-me-not to help others in similar situations, and – if possible – enable them to cope better while things are so challenging in our healthcare service.”
Drawing on Kerstin’s career in medical information design, Forget-me-not launches across the UK this month with its NHS compatible care packs designed to help people proactively monitor their own health, self-treat minor illness at home, and better manage long-term conditions. While giving them the confidence to know when and where to get medical advice when they need it.
Forget-Me-Not provides reliable advice based on NHS sources online combined with practical tools in a straightforward paper-based format – offering a simple-to-use alternative for those struggling with digital systems.
“The intention is to give patients a clear support to NHS Online. Instead of having to search for and sift through information, these guides are targeted and specific. Forget-me-not focuses firstly on presenting patients with information that’s simple-to-follow, reliable and precise. We’ve used British Medical Journal, NHS and other Government sources, and put it into clear easy to read booklets. Secondly, we’ve created straightforward paper-based formats for recording and monitoring your symptoms and conditions. These can be filled in by the patient, or someone who’s caring for them. The benefit of Forget-me-not is that’s deliberately designed to support and speed up diagnosis and treatment outcomes, helping both you the patient, and your GP or healthcare provider.”
Clear and simple-to-use self-help tools
Forget-Me-Not care packs will help patients monitor their own conditions, compile useful symptom histories, and take informed decisions.
They aim to support NHS Online, offer an alternative to app-based tools, and relieve patients of the requirement to sift through information by being targeted and specific. While these undoubtedly have a role to play, they can alienate some key patient groups (such as the elderly), often become more about technology than treatment, and can be susceptible to data breaches (a risk highlighted by 2022’s ransomware attacks on the NHS).
Therapeutic areas
Forget-me-not is launching with three lines: a main ‘Essentials’ care pack, alongside two ‘add-on packs’ on dementia and terminal illness.
Future lines will cover other primary causes of death in the UK and common long-term illnesses including arthritis, diabetes, mental health, thyroid conditions and high-blood pressure. The range will also address topics such as using catheters and managing pain.
The Essentials care pack includes:
Treating minor illness at home: when and where to get urgent medical treatment, which illnesses require medical advice, or which can be treated at home.
Observation record: how to take simple medical observations at home and record your symptoms to help the medical team diagnose illness efficiently.
Medical appointments – preparation and notes: helps patients prepare for their medical consultations, and record what was advised.
Emergency information: a short form to pass on vital information to hospitals, carers etc with contact details, medical needs and care support.
Hospital stay checklists: guidance on what patients might like to take with them for an inpatient stay, what they need to remember to take back with them and what they hospital may give them on their return home.
The Memory care pack includes:
Memory problems and dementia: explains common causes of memory problems, what you can do to look after your memory, detailed information on dementia and how it can be managed, alongside an area to record any incidents to show the GP.
Memory support set: labels to help around the home, wobbler reminders for pills etc, key tags, and ID card with clip/lanyard/belt/bag attachment.
Weekly planner: reminders for meals, appointments and to-do lists to help people manage at home.
Menu cards: simple drink and food options to act as reminders.
My memories lookbook: to create a visual record of a person for memory stimulation, to offer moments of contentment, and an activity to share.
Emergency information: a short form to pass on vital information to hospitals, carers etc with contact details, medical needs and care support.
The Terminal illness care pack includes:
Terminal illness and end-of-life care: gives detailed information on how to cope with terminal illness, where to find support, and end-of-life care options.
Advance statement of wishes: a form to detail exactly how you would choose to be cared for should decisions have to be made on your behalf.
Observation record: how to take simple medical observations at home and record your symptoms to help the medical team diagnose illness efficiently.
Medical appointments – preparation and notes: helps patients prepare for their medical consultations, and record what was advised.
Emergency information: a short form to pass on vital information to hospitals, carers etc with contact details, medical needs and care support.
Hospital stay checklists: guidance on what patients might like to take with them for an inpatient stay, what they need to remember to take back with them and what they hospital may give them on their return home.
More information and contact
Forget-Me-Not Products are produced in the UK by Fruition London Ltd
www.forget-me-not-products.co.uk
Fruition London Ltd, 13 The Green, Thriplow, South Cambridgeshire SG8 7QY
kerstin@fruitionlondon.com
For media enquiries please email kerstin@fruitionlondon.com
Feel free to use the large, but low resolution images featured here:
The business case for Forget-me-not Products
Supporting the NHS ‘self-care’ directive
Since 2015, the NHS has been looking into steering the UK towards ‘self-care’ as a low-cost means of relieving the problems in the state healthcare sector. These problems have been massively exacerbated by staffing issues and the Covid crisis. As a result, the healthcare teams who have been looking after us through such difficult times are now struggling mentally, physically, and financially.
Research from the BMA and the ONS makes grim reading:
- Mortality rates in the UK have grown and has impacted life expectancy
- Health services were not used as much
- Demand for hospital care has outstripped capacity (even before covid)
- Patients are waiting longer for emergency care
- Waiting times have rocketed
- GPs are finding it harder to make referrals
- Even the private sector can’t take the slack to help
- Dementia deaths have increased and diagnoses declined
- Cancer targets continue to be missed
- Alcohol consumption increased and alcoholic liver deaths are likely to rise
- Children’s development may have suffered
Survival of the NHS
If the NHS is to survive this crisis, a simple interim solution needs to step in quickly, while a new long-term plan is developed and executed.
The interim solution needs to be:
- Build on the ‘self-care’ initiative
- Quick to implement
- Function effectively and consistently
- Easy to deliver and distribute
- Have a justifiably sound return on investment.
Information security risk
The ransomware attacks on multiple NHS Trust systems in 2022 demonstrate that any new solutions for the NHS need to incorporate a physical record to be retained somewhere in case of system breach or technical issues, whether local or national.
NHS online
The NHS has a vast resource of high-quality information online either at NHS England, NHS 111, or individual NHS Trusts. However, to get specialist information requires insight, time, perseverance, and an ability to avoid the pitfalls of Google Search.
Any difficulties with accessing online information – because of illness, technical inability, or lack of access etc – make it almost impossible to get to the information you need. The NHS expects you, or someone close to you, to proactively search and sift for the information - it doesn’t seem to have much budget to print and distribute the information directly to patients.
While online distribution is a far cheaper option, our ability to absorb information on-screen is still very much in its infancy in the evolution of human development. Yes, digital sources enable us to use the invaluable ‘search’ facilities it offers, but we have centuries of experience of reading physical communications behind us.
There’s still very limited research on perception and legibility of online v physical communications – technology is evolving superfast so it’s understandably hard for research to keep up the pace. But the research that does exist to date shows that we still need both – digital and print. Print offers us spatial and physical cues to help us process the words on the static page, while web search encourages speed scanning without fully reading and absorbing the meaning of text.
A personal story
Having spent many hundreds of hours in recent years researching health issues for my work, and subsequently for my own family’s health, I have seen that there is an unmet need for reliable and concise offline tools to help people manage their symptoms and health at home.
About 10 years ago, frustration led me to set up my own spreadsheet to monitor my blood tests alongside my symptoms. The GP system online didn’t seem to convey the historical picture in a patient record – they could only view limited blood test results which only flagged whether it was normal, abnormal or borderline.
From my own experience, I have seen that showing a GP this historical record really helps them to understand my symptoms by giving a fuller picture and showing progression over time.
And by presenting a good summary medical history to consultants it has really helped the diagnosis process and getting the right treatment.
For example, my 70 year old mother had been suffering really badly for 3 years, despite seeing her GP and consultant numerous times. She got so ill that I decided to look after her at my home. To help with communicating with a completely new healthcare team (local GP, A&E and consultants), I pulled together an A4 summary sheet of her medical history. A clear picture of her symptoms, alongside a list of her test results and any investigations that had been done, enabled the new team to diagnose relatively quickly that she had in fact been suffering with Lymphoma.
Benefits to medical professionals
We aim to support medical professionals by helping to reduce unnecessary appointments when illness can be treated at home with basic guidance, while helping to create a consistent care pathway and improved patient communication channels.
Patients have printed tools to document and communicate their symptoms more accurately, enabling health professionals to improve early diagnosis and treatment outcomes.
Hard copy records address some of the risk of cyber threats to IT systems.
Benefits to patients
Our products aim to provide people with reliable information to self-treat minor illness at home, while giving them confidence to know when and where to get medical advice when they need it.
The printed care packs enable individuals to feel more in charge their medical history and encourages them to proactively engage with it.