GuestSpeak: MS Reporters scale-up their activity

MS Reporters 'shining example' of how everyday smartphone technology could empower thousands with long-term medical conditions


A pioneering initiative by Shift.ms, an online charity for people with multiple sclerosis (MS), has been hailed by a leading NHS neurologist as a ‘shining example' of how every-day smartphone technology could help to bridge the gap in healthcare information for hundreds of thousands of people living with long term medical conditions.


With the NHS under pressure and less time available with specialists, there is an increasing expectation on patients with long term medical conditions, such as MS, to self-care.


More patients are going online seeking advice, support and the latest research news. But there remains a desperate lack of trusted information available direct from healthcare professionals for patients which is easy to access and understand.


MS Reporters (www.shift.ms/msreporters) empowers people with MS (MSers) by enabling them to access the latest healthcare information and expert opinion from some of the UK’s leading MS specialists and researchers, regardless of where they live.




ProfB here... on re listening to the the talk again , I misunderstood the the mention of induction and it was not induction therapy and so there was no evidence presented
about rituximab being an induction therapy requiring only a few treatments. Currently this treatment is given every 6 months.

As a result MSers are better equipped to self-manage their condition and more aware of emerging new treatments which could benefit them. They are also less reliant on GPs between specialist appointments – good for patients and for shrinking NHS budgets.




How MS Reporters works







The pilot launch of MS Reporters two years ago coincided with the release of the NHS’s 5 Year Forward View which outlined the need to find new ways to help patients with long term medical conditions to self-care. The report highlighted that long term health conditions, rather than illnesses susceptible to a one-off cure, take 70% of the health service budget. About 15 million people in the UK have a long term condition*.


MS Reporters has been well received by both the MS community and healthcare professionals. The MS Reporter model has already been successfully adopted by two other charities - Shine Cancer Support and Join Dementia Research - demonstrating its potential to help hundreds of thousands of patients with long term medical conditions in future.


Thanks to the backing of the Wellcome Trust and Comic Relief, MS Reporters will be scaled up over the coming months and the model shared with other charities and organisations within the medical world and beyond.


George Pepper, co-founder of Shift.ms, who has MS, says: “Many people with MS get to spend just 15 minutes a year with their consultant, if they’re lucky. Ideally MSers would have more frequent time with specialists, however this is the reality we live in and MS Reporters aims to bridge this gap, empowering and informing the patient community by creating a dialogue with leading experts.”


“Engagement with patient communities is typically top-down, but MS Reporters allows MSers to see patients from their own community speaking with leading experts, helping to break down barriers. The videos allow MSers from all over the world to have their questions answered and to benefit from the knowledge and expertise of leading professionals, no matter where they live. It can also prevent them from missing out on new treatments which could transform their lives for the better.”


Shift.ms has so far trained 35 citizen reporters and teamed them with leading MS experts from specialist MS centres in London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Salford, Liverpool and Dublin. Reporters can be trained remotely, making the scheme accessible to MSers regardless of where they live or how mobile they are because of their condition.

There are now over 100 MS Reporter videos (www.shift.ms/msreporters) with a regular stream of new content being released monthly.


Prof Alan Thompson, Dean of the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London (UCL) and one of the UK’s leading MS experts, has been involved with MS Reporters from the start.


He says: "MS Reporters is a shining example of how every day technology can be successfully used to empower and benefit patients with long term medical conditions. This kind of innovation could revolutionise the level and quality of information available to many thousands of patients, leading to better health and wellbeing. It could also go a long way to relieve the pressure on the NHS by enabling a greater degree of self-management, reducing time with GPs between specialist appointments.


Anindita Ghosh, ShiftMS

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