Healthier Living Partnership – Healthier Devon

Sustained support for those most at risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes in Devon.

  • Location

    Devon

  • Launch

    Mar 2018

  • Area

    Health, Wellbeing & Independence

Collaborators & funding partners

  • Devon County Council

  • Life Chances Fund

Delivery Partner

  • Westbank

Team

Collaborators & funding partners

  • Devon County Council

  • Life Chances Fund

Delivery Partner

  • Westbank

  • Mila founded and leads Bridges Outcomes Partnerships (BOP). At BOP, we work to radically improve human services and environmental initiatives to improve outcomes for people and value for society. Programmes BOP supports are dedicated to empowering people across the world to improve their lives, in areas ranging from education and wellbeing to housing, child protection, employment and environmental protection. Mila is on boards of Positive Families Partnership, Stronger Families, Forward, North East Lincolnshire Thrive, Ways to Wellness, Education Outcomes Partnerships, along with other family, employment, and refugee support focused programmes.

    Mila is also a Trustee for Clore Social Leadership, organisation dedicated to providing social leaders with world class leadership development.

    Prior to Bridges, Mila’s career spanned public, private, and third sector. Mila helped create and run Education Generation, a crowdsourcing social enterprise focused on enabling young leaders in low-and middle-income countries to participate in some of the world’s most forward-thinking education programmes.

  • Lucia Santirso, Director at Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, has been working with Bridges for the last 6 years, during which time she has designed and implemented more than 10 Outcomes Partnerships related to:

    • Supporting young people in Kenya to take control over their health choices and paths to do more with their lives,
    • Improving the health and wellbeing of adults in the UK with long-term health conditions,
    • Helping elderly adults in the Netherlands improve their mobility and reduce their risk of falling,
    • Supporting unpaid carers in the UK to improve their wellbeing and sustain their caring role,
    • Supporting young people in the UK to attain better wellbeing and education outcomes, and
    • Supporting young people in the UK with special education needs to increase their independence towards adulthood.

    Before joining the BOP team, Lucia worked in Investor Relations at Bridges Fund Management. Lucia was also part of the Global Steering Group (GSG) Policy working group and is a co-author of the resulting report: “Catalysing an Impact Investment Ecosystem: A Policymaker’s Toolkit”. Prior to joining Bridges, Lucia worked in Equity Research at J.P. Morgan.

    Lucia holds a MSc in International Finance from HEC Paris and a BSc in International Business Administration from Rotterdam School of Management.

Overview

A behaviour change intervention programme for ‘harder to reach’ individuals at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in Devon.

Treatment for diabetes accounts for about 10% of the UK’s NHS budget, spread between primary and secondary care. In Devon, diabetes is particularly prevalent, causing significant harm to patients.

‘Healthier Living Partnership’ provides a behaviour change intervention programme for ‘harder to reach’ individuals at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in Devon – a group that requires more tailored and regular support.

The programme identifies and refers individuals with pre-diabetes in Devon to a diabetes education programme which promotes sustained healthy behaviour change and improved ability to self-care (nutrition, exercise and practical skills), resulting in a reduction in the incidence and complications of diabetes, in improved well-being, improved general health, and reduced use of healthcare services.

Delivery innovations

The switch to outcomes-based contracting has enabled a much more collaborative, flexible approach to problem-solving. This has facilitated a number of significant delivery innovations, including:

  • Healthier Living Partnership created a simple visual system to help participants become better aware of what foods they are eating, and learn to make changes for a healthier diet.
  • Taking a participant-led approach to delivery – for example using communication channels that best suit individual participants (in one case via post!) – has resulted in a higher programme completion rate.
  • Ensuring staff have an increased understanding of the case management system and its capabilities has meant they can better use it to tailor their work to the individual needs of participants.

Outcomes

Over 1,750 people have joined the programme since January 2019, of whom 84% have reduced their blood-sugar levels and 75% are no longer pre-diabetic.

  • 1778

    Starts to the programme

  • 921

    People completed the programme

  • 75

    Are no longer pre-diabetic

  • £1.2m

    Outcomes achieved