talkhealth CEO Catriona Williams on UK Health News Radio

talkhealth’s indefatigable CEO, Catriona Williams, took to the airwaves last week with an appearance on UK Health News Radio’s The Way Forward.

The show, presented by Stewart St Clair Pearce, is dedicated to supporting anyone who has suffered a stroke, serious illness or medical impairment which has resulted in a change of life. 

Recorded in quarantine (such are the challenges posed to media outlets these days!), the show’s theme was ‘empowerment’ and Catriona appeared as a guest to talk about talkhealth’s role in empowering patients to take control of their own health and condition self-management. She discussed our free expert-led clinics, support programmes and community forums. 

Stewart asked whether we should be the first port of call for patients who have noticed a change in their overall health, remarking that talkhealth ‘could be a wonderful adjunct to the GP surgery’.

‘That’s absolutely what we try to be,’ Catriona confirmed, ‘especially with our support programmes’.

‘They’re all about supporting the GPs’ time. When you go to see the GP, generally you only have a short amount of time in which to lay out your problem and receive help; (as a predominantly chronic conditions-led platform), what we do is support people long-term in how to best self-manage their health. Over the past 12 months, we’ve looked at all of our support programmes and the feedback has been better than we could have ever hoped for; one in three people told us that they’ve needed fewer GP appointments having been on one of our support programmes.’

Our patient support programmes are available in over 800 GP surgeries around the UK and they make a huge difference to the lives of patients and the number of patients that HCPs have to see each week.

The Way Forward is first aired on Fridays at 2pm, before being repeated at various times throughout the following week. Alternatively, you can listen on demand.

You can find out more here.