Patients with long-term health problems could soon be using their mobile phones to keep well, thanks to a firm in Oxfordshire.

Although text messaging has always been seen as a teenage pastime, T+ Medical, based at Milton Park, Abingdon, is using the technology to benefit people with conditions like asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.

With software designed by the Oxford University spin-off company, patients can log their daily symptoms and vital signs, such as blood sugar levels and blood pressure, into a central Internet system.

Doctors can then monitor the website to ensure their patients are fit and healthy.

The system is so advanced it can even identify patients who may need extra care, and flag them up with clinicians as a priority before they need emergency medical attention or hospital care.

John Buchan, T+ Medical sales and marketing director, said: "People with long-term conditions often end up spending unnecessary time at their GPs' surgeries, or even worse, being admitted to hospital as a result of poor disease management.

"Through the power of the T+ system and their own mobile phone, we hope these patients will now be able to monitor and manage their own condition more effectively and therefore reduce the strain on the NHS and themselves of emergency admissions and additional complications."

At present, 16m people suffer from long-term conditions in the UK, including about 190,000 in Oxfordshire, and they account for about 80 per cent of GP visits.

But the strain on the NHS is set to grow with an estimated 30 per cent of people suffering from chronic disease by 2025.

The T+ Medical system, which costs £100 per patient every year, has been trialled across the UK, and is now being promoted to primary care trusts, whose staff are battling to control long-term health problems among patients.

The website software picks up secure text messages sent by patients and logs the data in a diary of simple graphs, before sending them back to the handset.

The daily information can also be accessed and interpreted by doctors working online, or - at an extra cost - by a monitoring team at T+ Medical.

Although it has so far only been commissioned by Walsall PCT, which will use it to monitor 400 diabetic patients, it has been commended by Oxfordshire PCT.

A spokesman said: "We're aware of this type of system for supporting people with long-term conditions and we'll be interested in the outcome of any pilot studies on its use."