The NHS Long Term Plan outlined NHS England’s commitment to expand self-management services through commissioning Healthy living for people with type 2 diabetes, or Healthy living for short.

Healthy living is a free online service designed to provide advice and information to people living with type 2 diabetes, to help them better manage their condition. The programme is user-led and offers an alternative means of accessing support to the more traditional, group-based structured education programmes.

Originally developed by University College London (UCL), Healthy living provides information about type 2 diabetes and its treatments, offers advice on emotional wellbeing, and helps with adopting and maintaining healthy behaviours.

The programme has a strong evidence base proving its effectiveness. A randomised control trial (RCT), funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), demonstrated modest but significant improvements in HbA1c levels amongst the group using Healthy living. In addition to this, the UCL team also designed an implementation study demonstrating the feasibility of rolling Healthy living out at scale.

The service is available now across England and is accepting self-referrals. Register now at www.healthyliving.nhs.uk.

Health Living resources

• Patient leaflet: Healthy living for people with type 2 diabetes
• If you are a referrer interested in signposting to the programme, promotional resources are available to download from the FutureNHS Collaboration platform.

Contact us

If you have any queries about Healthy living, please email england.digitaldiabetes@nhs.net.