I’ve been off with a stomach bug this week and after five days I still can’t eat anything. Now in a 9000 calorie deficit and having dropped 3kgs, I keep thinking what I really need is someone to hand me things when it’s too hard to get up.

That made me wonder, isn’t there an app for that? Scrolling my phone is one thing I can still do lying down so I started looking around and… there is! But seemingly only for people living with cancer which, extremely fortunately, I do not have.

This did make me wonder, what if the app didn’t need regular or long term users, just occasional but committed ones? Uber, for example. I’ve had the app on my phone since 2012 – they are my go-to for 4am airport runs, but those only happen a few times a year. The rest of the time I’m no value to the company at all, but they can guarantee I will always be a default customer for those late night journeys.

With a sickness support app, it wouldn’t need frequently returning users indefinitely, just enough people at any one time to keep the ecosystem going – for example you may commit to paying back the number of hours you received while you were ill yourself, allowing the next person to benefit.

To make this work, first you would need a bank of people who are willing to support someone with basic household tasks while they’re unwell. They’d need to be caring, sociable, reliable, safe, vaccinated and hygienic. They could sign up to the app with a profile and reviews for prospective ‘patients’ to pick the best match based on their needs and location.

Next you’d need users, who may also be supporters themselves and are perhaps willing to pay someone an hourly rate to keep them company, do the laundry, answer the door, replenish the paracetamol, open the window, close the curtains, make a hot water bottle, refill liquids and make the odd slice of toast.

Then you’d need a payment system including to cover anything that needed to be purchased without sharing your card details, at first perhaps a simple integration with a third party tool like Paypal which could be upgraded to a more professional solution in the future.

And finally you’d need a community management component. This could be the trickiest problem to solve as we’d be dealing with people, health and a certain amount of risk. The community would need strong guidelines on what the app is and isn’t for and a structured, legal approach to managing the safety of all users.

All very achievable I would say and the end result avoids the scenario articulated so aptly by Yael Cohen:

“You’ve got 14 bouquets of dying flowers but nobody has walked the dog.”