The Dipex Charity began in 2001 following the work of Dr. Ann McPherson and Dr. Andrew Herxheimer. Wearing the hats of both doctor and patient, they felt a strong urge to learn from other people’s health and social care experiences. They wanted to harness these stories to help them and other people understand what to expect and how their lives might be affected by whatever challenge they were facing.

Their idea was to collect stories about health and social care from real people and share them with the public. So, in the late 1990s, years before YouTube and broadband were available, a steering group formed around Ann’s kitchen table and decided to build a website and pack it with videos.

The website was first called “The Database of Individual Patient Experiences” or “DIPEx,” and now it’s known as healthtalk.org. The charity has kept the name Dipex as a nod to our beginnings.

To collect and make sense of all these stories, they worked with qualitative researchers. Together, they turned research into useful resources based on what thousands of people went through.

Nowadays, you can find all this content on socialcaretalk.org and healthtalk.org. Our websites help millions of people every year feel more ready, informed, and less alone. The information is not just for the public – it’s also used to teach and train and professionals.

Why not join us and publish your research on SocialCareTalk.org?