Public enthusiasm for self-care risks being squandered

Increasing amounts of time, effort and money are invested by people wanting to live healthier lives. On the face of it, this should be an ideal environment in which to deliver the prevention ambitions of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan. 

So why do many health professionals continue to view this development with suspicion?

The gap in attitudes to self-care

Interest in self-care and wellness has grown exponentially. Google references for self-care and wellness have risen from around 300 million in 2017 to 6.3 billion in 2023. A recent study from The Self-Care Forum and Imperial College London’s Self-Care Academic Research Unit demonstrated that self-care is both well understood and widely embraced by the public. It highlighted that when dealing with common symptoms, 88 per cent of respondents said they manage them independently, while only 2 per cent seek a GP opinion. Use of over-the-counter medicines has risen from 22 per cent in 2011 to 46 per cent in 2025.

But while the research showed that people want greater responsibility for their own health, the same study revealed a contradictory perspective among health professionals. Sixty-five per cent of health professionals involved in the research believed the greatest barriers to self-care were patients’ willingness to engage, their understanding of self-care and their readiness to take responsibility.

If aspirations to shift towards prevention are to be meaningful, this disconnect must be addressed. 

Why the gap?

There is a semantic gulf between the public’s understanding of self-care and the narrower biomedical view held by many professionals. In busy consultations, self-care is often framed in terms of professional input—through ‘supported self-care’ for preventing or treating specific conditions. In reality, self-care is far broader, encompassing wellness, lifestyle, wellbeing and independent action that does not rely on professional involvement.

Restricting the definition of self-care to ‘supported’ models risks crowding out independent self-care, in which people are empowered to make informed decisions, with professional advice as a safety net rather than the default.

Information quality and quantity 

There is no doubt that 6.3 billion Google self-care references will not be awash with evidence-based advice, but they demonstrate a level of self-care activation that we could only have dreamed of even ten years ago. 

Both patients and GPs express concern about internet-based health information and its impact on consultations. Patients worry about credibility; professionals worry about time pressures, misinformation and challenges to professional authority. This is sometimes termed as the ‘heartbeat moment’, describing the initial anxiety professionals feel when presented with unfamiliar information found online by patients. 

These concerns are legitimate. But disengagement is not the answer.

Closing the gap 

Closing the self-care gap means starting where people are in their definitions of self-care. It means giving people good information, helping people understand what is normal, what is not, when to seek professional help, and where to go for it - accepting that people often want to, and can, self-care independently.

Many professionals are already adapting constructively, using a range of strategies:

• Understanding the full scope of self-care
  Accepting the wider self-care continuum definition of self-care, including wellness and lifestyle.
• Embracing enthusiasm and partnership
  Welcoming internet-informed patients, using their findings as a starting point for discussion rather than a confrontation about ‘the wrong sort of self-care’.
• Admitting uncertainty
  Being willing to say, ‘I don’t know everything—let me read this and get back to you’, and acknowledging the effort patients have made.
• Directing people to trusted sources
  Recommending reputable UK websites, particularly those displaying the PIF TICK , which certifies an organisation’s efforts to ensure information is accessible and readable, and to other credible sources such as nhs.uk and patient.co.uk. The whole primary care team should be involved – social prescribers, for instance, are ideally placed to have conversations to guide people towards good information.
• Using bridging resources
  Recommending credible fact sheets designed to align professional and public understanding.
• Building misinformation literacy
  Signposting tools such as the NHS Misinformation Unmasked resource.

While there is a demonstrable gap in understanding of self-care between people and professionals, which is likely to impact the delivery of a shift to prevention, we have the tools available to close the gap. If we ignore the gap, we risk squandering the advantages of an activated and enthusiastic public and leaving people vulnerable to online misinformation.

A change in approach and attitudes is needed, but by building on existing public enthusiasm for self-care, the results will be of incalculable benefit to all of us, without vast investment. 

Dr Peter Smith OBE is president of the Self-Care Forum. You can connect with Peter on LinkedIn, facebook and bluesky