Encouraging the public to ‘Google’ their symptoms will backfire

I read your ‘Question of the Fortnight’ in Issue 485 (‘Will your smartphone replace your GP?’) with some concern. I appreciate the need to save money in the NHS, and use technology better, but I think that encouraging more ‘self-diagnosis’ isn’t the best way to go about it.

In years gone by I was guilty of ‘Googling’ my symptoms. Every time I had an ache or pain that seemed out of the ordinary I would type the symptom into Google to see what it could be. And every time it was like opening a Pandora’s Box of paranoia. The problem is that there is so much ill-considered health advice online. Five minutes on a medical forum and I would convince myself that my slight headache would turn into cancer overnight.

I eventually kicked this habit after several visits to my GP. He didn’t have a good word to say about Google. He said that rather than reducing visits to his surgery, self-diagnosing had led to a sharp increase. His analysis was that many people when they’re ill are more likely to believe the worst possible scenario, and that’s dangerously easy to find online.

So when Jeremy Hunt says that the NHS must change because we live in the “smartphone age”, he should be careful what he wishes for. In his overly optimistic rationale, patients will search for their symptoms online and conclude that they don’t need a visit to the hospital or GP. But I think the opposite will happen.

Before the internet, people just stayed in bed and waited to get better because there was no fast way of finding out what was wrong with them. These days they simply read the worst-case scenario in seconds, then head to the GP in a panic. Mary Pilger