Does peer support benefit people with long-term health conditions?

Nesta is an innovation charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. It is dedicated to supporting ideas that can help improve all our lives, with activities ranging from early stage investment to in-depth research and practical programmes. In the Health Lab at Nesta, the vision is to create a people powered health system. A key component of this includes taking a ‘more than medicine’ approach to supporting people with health conditions, including developing informal networks and championing impactful volunteering. Peer support is a particular form of ‘more than medicine’ that Nesta has been interested in over the past few years.

At this seminar, Johanna Ejbye and Jullie Tran Graham will be presenting the Health Lab’s work on peer support with a particular focus on Nesta’s practical work. This will include a discussion on the learnings and outputs from the Health Lab’s Realising the Value programme, the Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund, and the Accelerating Ideas Fund.

Johanna Ejbye mainly works on Realising the Value - a programme funded by NHS England and jointly led with the Health Foundation to find, test and share best practice ‘person-centred’ health and care approaches to actively involve people in their health and care.

Jullie Tran Graham is responsible for a number of grants within the Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund with a focus on programmes that accelerate the growth of peer-to-peer support and big data initiatives. She also co-leads the Helping in Hospitals programme.