Our core objective is to use education to help people prevent or self-manage diabetes

We are proud of the success we have achieved in helping people reduce their medication and enjoy a healthier lifestyle. We are delighted to work with so many commissioners and have the opportunity to share our knowledge with so many people.

⦿ Over 500,000 patients educated nationwide on X-PERT programmes
⦿ X-PERT commissioned by over 100 different organisations
⦿ Potentially saving the NHS £367,000,000 through education not medication
⦿ BAME programme participants over 25%
⦿ Over 600 trained educators
⦿ Over 100 centres offering X-PERT programmes

Educator Feature: Stockport NHS Foundation Trust

Educator Feature: Aylesbury Central Primary Care Network

Audit 2024: Empowering Lives Through Education

The 2024 X-PERT Health Audit reveals compelling evidence of the positive impact of its diabetes management and wellbeing programmes.

“Education is the cornerstone of diabetes care,” said Trudi Deakin, CEO at X-PERT Health. “This audit underscores the life-changing impact of structured education, which not only improves health outcomes but also alleviates pressure on the healthcare system.”

Download our Annual Audit Diabetes Report 2024 Here

Download our Annual Audit Weight & Wellbeing Report 2024 Here

Notable Outcomes of the Audit Report 2024

All of the programme level results for the 2024 audit report were better than those in 2023, including number of programmes, number of participants registered, number of completers, percentage who completed a programme, mean evaluation score, and improvements in empowerment.

68.4% of participants were white, compared to 82% of people in England Wales in the most recent census. This suggests organisations delivering X-PERT programmes are effectively engaging ethnic minority groups. This is important, as individuals from these groups have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and the complications associated with it.

Although the majority of participants (63.4%) were newly diagnosed, 851 people who attended a programme (15%) had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more than 10 years ago. This is important, as X-PERT believe that good quality education, and suitable lifestyle changes, can be helpful for everyone with type 2 diabetes, no matter how long they have had it for.

HbA1c improvements in 2024 were similar to those in 2023, but more data were available for analyses. This means this years results can be considered to be more robust.

An 11mmol/mol reduction in HbA1c has previously been associated with a 21% decrease in the risk of diabetes-related complication and in the risk of deaths related to diabetes. Approximately one in every three X-PERT participants achieved a reduction in HbA1c of at least this size at both 6 months and 12 months.

As the majority of participants (78.2%) did not increase their need for diabetes medication, the clinically meaningful reductions seen for HbA1c are likely due to lifestyle changes, rather than pharmaceutical interventions. Audits of other programmes often do not report on medication usage, which makes the cause of any potential benefits difficult to assess.

If the 522 participants who were recorded as having been able to omit diabetes medication after 6 months are able to maintain this, the NHS would save an estimated £233,856 per year in reduced expenditure on drugs for them. Further savings would be expected for those who reduce medication needs but without completely omitting them.

It is estimated that between 4.9% and 31.6% of X-PERT participants achieved remission of type 2 diabetes by 6 months during the current audit period.

There was little difference in outcomes between face-to-face programmes and remote group programmes (delivered using video conferencing software such as Teams or Zoom), though where there were differences they actually suggest that remote programmes may be more effective. This is notable, as most of the available evidence in the published literature is for face-to-face interventions.