Where To Get IBS Support Now The IBS Network Has Closed
If you’ve been searching online for The IBS Network - the UK's national IBS charity - you will no longer find it. You have not made a mistake. The charity closed its doors after 34 years due to a lack of funding, and its useful website closed with it.
So what's the alternative? Where do you go to find evidence-based support for IBS and digestive issues?
We have mapped the best resources: from FODMAP diet apps and registered dietitians, to free NHS webinars, approved low FODMAP recipes, alternative charities, and your local GP. Below, you will find which one is right for where you are right now.
Skip Ahead - What support do you need?
Looking for an alternative charity that can help → Guts UK
Want to start the low FODMAP diet → IBS Coach app
Want one-to-one dietitian support → BDA registered dietitian
Want to understand the condition first → Free NHS webinars
Want to rule out red flags and get a diagnosis → Your local GP
The IBS support picture at a glance
| What you need | 1:1 professional dietitian | IBS Coach app FODMAP Plan | NHS IBS webinars | Guts UK charity | Local GP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complete low FODMAP diet plan | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| FODMAP recipes and meal plans | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| 1:1 dietitian support | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Understanding the condition | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Diagnosis and red flag checks | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
These resources are evidence-based, trustworthy, and designed to help you get the support you need.
The most common mistake people make is spending six months collecting free information - a helpline call, a handful of articles, a food list downloaded - without committing to the process that manages your symptoms and identifies your specific triggers. Reading about IBS is not the same as testing your intolerances to FODMAPs. Work out which stage you are at below, and go straight to the resource built for it.
What Happened To The IBS Network?
The IBS Network was the UK's national charity for irritable bowel syndrome, and it supported people living with the condition for over three decades. It closed for financial reasons, and transferred a number of its services to Guts UK, the national charity for the digestive system.
Its website is no longer online. The membership scheme, the self-care programme and the patient factsheets have all gone with it. The old web address has since been bought by an unrelated commercial operator, so anything you find there now has nothing whatsoever to do with IBS.
We have compared the evidence-based resources to help you find the one best suited to you.
Where To Get Evidence-Based Support For IBS And Digestive Issues?
There are several places to get reliable help, and each one solves a different problem. Here is what each is best at, and who it suits.
The Complete FODMAP Diet Plan
Top pick: IBS Coach app
Best for: People new to the low FODMAP diet looking for a complete plan.
The low FODMAP diet is the most researched dietary approach to IBS. The low FODMAP diet is a short-term diet to calm digestion, test your personal intolerances, and get you back to living life.
Studies reports that up to 86% of people see improvement in their overall digestive symptoms on the diet. Today, there are several evidence-based apps that can help you with the low FODMAP diet. However, you must first understand what you need in an app - then pick the right one.
Go to the comparison of the best IBS and FODMAP apps, or read the summary below.
Who is this actually for? Anyone who has been told to try the low FODMAP diet.
Which to choose?
For the Complete FODMAP Diet Plan - IBS Coach app: The only one of the three that maps out the gold standard 3-step process for you - the elimination phase, the reintroduction phase, and back to normal life knowing your unique triggers. Dietitian-approved daily meals, a built-in planner and an automated shopping list. IBS Coach is best for anyone new to the diet who wants guidance without feeling overwhelmed.
For the Comprehensive Food Database - Monash University app: The undisputed leader for looking up individual ingredients. Monash is the research team who lab test ingredients for specific FODMAP levels. If you just want to know if an ingredient is safe, caution or avoid - then this is the app for you. However, bear in mind you still need to complete a low FODMAP diet to identify your specific intolerances and triggers. To do this, we recommend the IBS Coach app.
If stress and anxiety drive your symptoms - Nerva Hypnotherapy for IBS: Six weeks of daily gut-directed hypnotherapy audio. It does not track food or provide recipes at all. It is built for people who are more prone to stress and anxiety related IBS. If you haven't identified your food triggers, it's worth doing the low FODMAP diet first.
Who is it NOT for? None of these apps diagnose anything so we always advise you to talk to your GP before starting any plan. It is good to remember that guidelines advise against cutting out high FODMAP foods permanently - the FODMAP diet is a short-term plan, not a forever diet.
Alternatives to consider: If you would rather have a professional guide you through it in person, a registered dietitian can help.
Work with a Specialist Dietitian
Best for: One-to-one intensive support.
A registered dietitian can create a more personalised and bespoke experience for you that might encompass more than the low FODMAP diet. If you have complications or other intolerances they are a good place to start.
Who is this actually for? Anyone who wants professional supervision, or has complex symptoms.
Why it works for them:
A Protected Title: In the UK, "dietitian" is a legally protected title regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. "Nutritionist" is not - anyone at all can use it. Everyone in the BDA directory is HCPC-registered.
Genuine FODMAP Training: You can filter the directory directly to low FODMAP specialists, and many of them trained on the King's College London FODMAP course - the team who adapted the diet for the UK in the first place.
Personalised To You: A dietitian adjusts the plan around your other conditions, your budget and your life, rather than handing you a generic protocol.
Who is it NOT for? These are private consultations and can be quite expensive. Before you go private, ask your GP about an NHS dietetic referral - waiting lists vary enormously by area, but it costs nothing to ask. If private fees are simply not affordable right now, do not let that stop you starting: the free webinars below cover a great deal of the same ground.
Alternatives to consider: If you just want to get support for the low FODMAP diet, the IBS Coach app will guide you through the 3-step process. The app is developed with dietitians who specialise in the low FODMAP diet - and the app makes it easier to create meal plans, track symptoms, and complete the FODMAP testing to find your personal triggers.
Free NHS Webinars
Best for: Understanding your digestion properly.
Patient Webinars hosts a set of IBS sessions presented by specialist NHS gastroenterology dietitians. They are completely free, they require no sign-up, and the project has picked up NICE and NHS England awards along the way. This is the closest free replacement for the education side of what The IBS Network used to provide.
Who is this actually for? Someone newly diagnosed who wants to understand what IBS actually is before making changes, and anyone waiting on an NHS referral who wants to use that time productively.
Why it works for them:
A Full Consultation's Worth: The low FODMAP session is deliberately the length of a full dietetic appointment - roughly an hour of exactly the material a dietitian would take you through in clinic.
Reintroduction Covered: There is a dedicated session on the reintroduction process, which is the phase most free resources skip entirely.
| Webinar | Length |
|---|---|
| First Line Dietary Advice for IBS | 35 mins |
| The Low Lactose Diet | 14 mins |
| The Low FODMAP Diet | 59 mins |
| Low FODMAP Reintroduction Process | 15 mins |
Who is it NOT for? Two of the four sessions, including the main low FODMAP one, were last reviewed in June 2022. The underlying science has not changed. But if you want current guidance on newer questions, such as gut-directed hypnotherapy, pair these with a dietitian or an actively updated app rather than treating them as the final word.
Alternatives to consider: Webinars explain the diet, but they will not guide you through a complete FODMAP diet plan. Once you understand the approach, you will still need to choose an app or dietitian.
Dietitian Approved Recipes And Meal Plans
Best for: Trying out low FODMAP recipes.
Understanding the diet and eating it are two entirely separate problems. The elimination phase asks you to cook differently for four weeks. This is the point at which good recipes stop being a nice-to-have and become the thing that determines whether you finish or quit.
Who is this actually for? Anyone in the elimination phase, and anyone who has looked at a list of ingredients and thought there is nothing left to eat.
Why it works for them:
7-Day Low FODMAP Meal Plan: A complete first week of the elimination phase, dietitian-approved, with a shopping list. Built to be affordable, because low FODMAP eating has a reputation for being expensive and it does not have to be.
Low FODMAP Recipe Bank: Dietitian-approved recipes to browse once you are past week one and want variety without the guesswork.
BBC Good Food: A smaller low FODMAP collection, but free, well tested and written for UK kitchens and UK ingredients.
The Low-FODMAP Recipe Book by Lucy Whigham: 125 recipes from a specialist gastroenterology dietitian who was in the first group trained by King's College London in the diet, back in 2010. Worth having on the shelf if you prefer a book to a screen.
Who is it NOT for? Recipes on their own will not get you an answer. You can eat perfectly low FODMAP for weeks and learn absolutely nothing if you do not then test your tolerance to foods systematically. Recipes make the diet liveable; only a complete low FODMAP diet plan makes it useful.
Alternatives to consider: If you want the meals and the structure in one place, IBS Coach turns the weekly plan into an automated shopping list and walks you through the reintroduction phase afterwards.
If you are just starting out, the goal is to do this diet once, properly, and get back to normal life - not to keep restricting indefinitely. That is what a complete low FODMAP diet plan is for.
Get the complete FODMAP diet plan on Apple
Alternative Charity to the IBS Network
Best for: Trustworthy patient information, a helpline, and the practical problems nobody else covers.
Who is this actually for? Anyone who wants clinician-reviewed information from a source with no product to sell, and anyone whose day-to-day life is limited by urgency rather than by diet.
Why it works for them:
Guts UK - The Direct Successor: Guts UK is the national charity for the whole digestive system, and it took on a number of The IBS Network's services when it closed. Its information is clinician-reviewed and it also funds research, which keeps its guidance conservative and evidence-led rather than trend-driven.
Bladder & Bowel UK - The Practical Problem: Urgency is one of the most limiting parts of IBS and one of the least discussed. The Just Can't Wait card is a free, credit-card-sized card explaining that you have a medical need for urgent toilet access. It is widely recognised by UK retailers and venues, and there is a digital version you can add to Apple or Google Wallet in a couple of minutes.
Who is it NOT for? Guts UK covers the entire digestive system, so its IBS content is necessarily broader and less granular than a dedicated IBS charity's would have been. For the specifics of running the low FODMAP diet week by week, you will still need one of the tools above.
Alternatives to consider: Use Guts UK for the information and the helpline, and a complete low FODMAP diet plan for the diet itself. They do different jobs and they work well alongside each other.
Talk to your local GP: Get A Diagnosis
Best for: Everyone. It’s always a good idea to talk to your GP if you are experiencing a change in bowel habits of have ongoing digestive symptoms.
It is tempting to skip this one, particularly if you have had symptoms for years and feel you already know what they are. IBS shares its symptoms with several conditions that need entirely different treatment.
Who is this actually for? Anyone with digestive symptoms who has never had a formal diagnosis, and anyone whose long-standing symptoms have recently changed.
Why it works for them:
Red Flags Get Ruled Out First: Some digestive symptoms need investigating rather than a diet plan, and only a GP can tell you which. The NHS IBS pages set out what to look out for and when to book an appointment. If anything about your symptoms has changed recently, start there rather than with a diet.
Who is it NOT for? Everyone with digestive issues should go and talk to their GP.
Alternatives to consider: There is no alternative to this step, but you do not have to sit idle while you wait for an appointment. The free NHS webinars above are the best possible use of that waiting time.
The Bottom line
If you have never been formally diagnosed, start with your GP. This will help put your mind at ease and give you the support if you need further investigations.
Which resource you reach for should depend entirely on which hurdle is standing between you and feeling better:
Want to understand your digestion? The free NHS webinars are the best hour you will spend.
Symptoms are complex, or you have stalled before? A BDA registered dietitian is worth the money.
Urgency is what limits your daily life? A free toilet card will do more for you this week than any amount of reading.
However, if you are one of the many people who has been told to "try the low FODMAP diet" and left to work it out alone, do not settle for a food list and hope. A database is a dictionary, but what you need is a plan. To get through the 3-step process and identify your unique triggers as quickly as possible, a complete low FODMAP diet plan remains the only logical place to start.
To start the low FODMAP diet with our top pick:
The IBS Network has closed its doors. So where do you go now for evidence-based support with IBS and digestive issues? We map the complete UK picture - from FODMAP diet apps and registered dietitians, to free NHS webinars, dietitian-approved recipes, alternative charities and your local GP - so you know exactly which one is right for where you are right now.