Simon Leigh is a principal consultant & senior health economist at Lifecode Solutions.
In 2015 he was sharing a workspace with psychologist Steve Flatt who asked him to do a bit of digging into the evidence supporting mental health apps.
After looking at the NHS app store Leigh realised there was a shocking lack of data to back these apps up.
The pair wrote a report called 鈥楢pp-based psychological interventions: friend or foe?鈥� which suggested that although apps had huge potential there were many problems to overcome.
These included a lack of evidence to support them and fears that users could become over-reliant on the tech.
Since then a new NHS apps library which includes many of the evidence-based apps cited in the report has been launched, suggesting things seem to have moved on a little.
However apps are coming through so quickly it鈥檚 hard to monitor all of them, says Leigh.
鈥淲hat gets my goat is the NHS only recommends one or two apps,鈥� he says.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e already using an app you have no idea if it鈥檚 any better than the apps they鈥檙e recommending.
” If you were switching electricity and gas you鈥檇 only switch when you knew that one鈥檚 better than the other.鈥�
Because of this frustration Leigh got involved with ORCHA HEALTHCARE, which promotes and reviews health apps.
This way users can pick apps based on the most important things for them 鈥� from user experience to supporting evidence or data privacy.
鈥淭here are lots of opportunities around apps but the important thing is not to oversell them,鈥� says Leigh.
During his research Leigh has found the quality of apps often have surprisingly little to do with downloads or user ratings.
鈥淧eople often go on the number of downloads but you can鈥檛 trust that,鈥� he says.
鈥淚鈥檇 look to someone like ORCHA who doesn鈥檛 have a vested interest to find a good app, but the important thing is not to use one without doing some research first.鈥�