The HED-LINE research project (2020-2024) has been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research programme to evaluate the early roll-out of Healthy Living across England’.
Healthy Living for people with Type 2 Diabetes
Healthy Living is a free online NHS service to help people self-manage type 2 diabetes. It is available across England to support people in making some changes such as being more active, eating healthily and stopping smoking.
Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support programmes can support people with type 2 diabetes to develop the knowledge and skills to make changes in their diet and exercise behaviour and better manage their diabetes. NHS face-to-face group services are available, but an online service may be a suitable option for some people and may reduce pressure on clinical services. Healthy Living was created as an online alternative for people with type 2 diabetes in England.
HED-LINE – What are we doing
The aim of the HED-LINE research study is to consider whether Healthy Living works and whether it is a good use of NHS resources. We are studying anonymised data from Healthy Living and general practice records, looking closely at the website content, analysing the costs and benefits, and interviewing website users and NHS staff. We will report on:
- Who uses the Healthy Living platform and whether engagement varies by patient populations.
- Whether it’s effective in changing health outcomes for people.
- What the key barriers and facilitators are to implementing this national programme.
- Whether people are receiving a high quality Healthy Living service.
- If the programme is delivering value for money.
During the research we are regularly reporting back to the people at NHS England who run Healthy Living, making suggestions about what could be improved, and they are making changes as they go along. People with experience of diabetes are playing an important role in this research and help us to identify the benefits to patients and the NHS.
HED-LINE - Why this research is needed
Healthy Living is based on HeLP Diabetes, an online intervention that is evidence-based, theoretically informed, acceptable to patients and which was found to be effective in reducing blood glucose in a clinical trial.
What remains uncertain is how Healthy Living will perform when offered nationally in real-world conditions. Therefore, it is important to have an independent evaluation of the national roll-out of Healthy Living.
