Peer support available to all
Peer support can improve health and wellbeing, but what would it take for it to be available to anyone who needs it? Our first Q Lab explored the issues.
On this page
Almost 200 participants came together in our first Q Lab to explore how peer support could be made more widely available. A national survey revealed valuable insights about what’s important in a peer support service, and findings from the Lab led to the creation of the Peer Support Hub of high-quality resources.
Background to the Lab
The first Q Lab launched in 2017 to explore what it would take for effective peer support to be more widely available to those who need it, to help manage their long-term health and wellbeing needs.
Peer support in health and care is where people with shared experiences, characteristics or circumstances support each other to improve health and wellbeing. Peers can be people with similar health conditions, or from similar communities or backgrounds.
It can take place in formal health care settings, in informal groups, and it often exists on the boundary between health services, charities and communities.
This diversity in peer support has implications for how it is understood and delivered. The term ‘peer support’ can cover a range of activities. This can cause misunderstanding, complexity in how to measure and evaluate peer support, and difficulties in how people become aware of and access services.
Interest has been growing in the UK and internationally about how health and care services can put people at the centre of their care and support them to become active partners. In the UK, much of this work sits under the banner of person-centred care, personalisation, or choice and control. However, prioritisation of and access to peer support is patchy.
What we did
From April 2017 to May 2018, Q Lab worked with almost 200 Lab participants with different experiences of and expertise in peer support. Representatives from National Voices, Mind and Positively UK took part.
Together, we undertook research to understand what is working well in peer support and where there are opportunities to improve and accelerate this.
Working with YouGov and Dr Christina Pagel from University College London, we conducted a nationwide survey on decision-making in peer support; we believe it was the biggest peer support survey in the UK at the time.
Explore the outcomes
Survey results
Our national survey on peer support revealed a number of insights.
Use of peer support by the public
- Almost one in five members of the public had used peer support.
- Those with long-term conditions were more than twice as likely to have used peer support as those without a long-term condition.
- Three women had used peer support for every two men.
- Those under 65 years of age were almost twice as likely to have used peer support as those over 65.
Referral to peer support by health care professionals
- Almost a quarter of health care professionals had referred to peer support.
- Mental health professionals were most likely to refer to peer support, with just over half saying that they had referred.
- 39% of GPs, 38% of hospital doctors and 35% of nurses and midwives said they had referred to peer support.
What’s important when referring, recommending or using peer support
The health care workforce, peer support workforce and the public who hadn’t used peer support all considered the same factors as the most important for a peer support service.
These factors all appeared in the top six for people who had used peer support before, but they valued the chance to meet people with similar experiences over the ability to access the service quickly.
An online evidence hub for professionals
Q Lab revealed that high quality materials on peer support are scattered across the internet. This makes finding relevant information to inform the development of effective peer support services an arduous and sometimes impossible task for time-poor professionals.
As a direct result of the Lab, the Health Foundation awarded a grant to National Voices to develop a new online evidence hub for peer support.
The Peer Support Hub launched in March 2019 to collate, curate and categorise the best quality information and evidence together in one place; making it easier for people to find useful, high quality resources.
The Hub is no longer being updated but you can contact National Voices for the catalogue of materials.
Through the Peer Support Hub we are aiming to boost the development of peer support programmes across the country. In doing so, we hope to give everyone the opportunity to benefit from speaking to someone who really ‘gets it’.
Contact Q Lab
Contact us about Q Lab at Qlab@health.org.uk
Discover more
-
Mental health problems and persistent back and neck pain
6 minute readHow can care be improved for people living with both mental health problems and back and neck pain? Q Lab brought people together to explore the issues and identify solutions. -
About Q
3 minute readWe are a membership community collaboratively accelerating the improvement of care in the UK and Ireland. We learn together, support each other and share insights to address health system challenges.