Healthier You - BP
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Healthier You Hypertension pilot to prevent long term conditions
IRAS ID
350015
Contact name
Jonathan Valabhji
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Multiple long-term conditions are associated with poorer health outcomes, higher death-rates and greater use of health care services. While this has led to the development of guidelines for their treatment, their prevention has received less attention.
In 2016 the NHS in England established the Healthier You NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme (NHS DPP), a 9-month lifestyle intervention supporting weight loss, increased physical activity, and better-quality nutrition for those at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Research has shown that completion of the NHS DPP may reduce incidence of other long-term conditions, resulting in this proposed pilot expansion of the programme to adults with hypertension (high blood pressure).
The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of access to a lifestyle intervention (a tailored version of the NHS DPP) in reducing incidence of long-term conditions in individuals with hypertension when compared to ‘usual’ care. It will involve 210 GP practices in England over 3 years. The GP practices will be randomly allocated into three separate groups: the first group will start to offer the interventions at the start of the first year, the second at the start of the second year and the final group at the start of the third year. Each group will continue to offer interventions for the remainder of the study period, so that by the start of the third year all 210 practices will be offering interventions. This is known as a “stepped wedge” approach and will enable practices who have started offering interventions to be compared to practices who have not yet done so, allowing the impact of the interventions to be assessed in a more effective way.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/NW/0209
Date of REC Opinion
21 Aug 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion