Diabetic Prevention Programme

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is contributing remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the observational study by academics of the 2018-19 wave of the NHS diabetes prevention programme, published by BMC Health Services Research, observed disengagement within sessions when patients reported that information was difficult to understand, and when there were very large group sizes and problems with session scheduling. This is all before Covid. Problems with the course will inevitably make patients more likely to drop out but 50% is shocking. Now that this diabetes prevention programme has been rolled out across England, have these specific problems been addressed?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about what we have to learn from these programmes. In many of these programmes we are in a process of discovery. You try things—some will work and some will not. Those which do not work, we want to learn the lessons from. Clearly, the length of the programme, nine months, has put some people off and led to the dropout rate. We are looking at shorter programmes, digital access and self-assessment, and at community-led initiatives rather than top-down government initiatives. To give another example, I met someone at a meeting yesterday who told me that his mosque in Accrington was running healthier-diet programmes for worshippers. We need to see a lot more of those programmes as well.