OXFORDSHIRE health bosses are encouraging patients with long term conditions such as diabetes to ‘look after themselves’ in a bid to cut costs.

According to a new report, the county could save up to £1,800 per patient over their lifetime with programmes which promote yoga and healthy eating and discourage people from visiting doctors and hospitals.

Primary care trust NHS Oxfordshire said there are about 180,000 people living with long-term health conditions such as diabetes, MS or ME.

And it has estimated it spends around two thirds of its £800m yearly budget on people with long term health problems.

The trust already pays a company to run self management courses – which cost £300 per patient – for people in the county to learn how to control their illness themselves.

It is hoping to roll out more of the classes over the next year.

NHS Oxfordshire service development manager Ian Cave hoped the move would encourage people to be as independent as possible.

He said: “We are trying to support people to have more control and input over their lives and avoid the distress of having to be admitted to a hospital as an emergency.

“These courses are free to those who participate, but the cost to the taxpayer for each place is £300.

“This is good value for tax payers money compared to the cost of emergency visits to A&E or hospital admissions.

“It is far better for taxpayers to pay for these sorts of courses than to spend more in the long run on hospitals.”

The Expert Patient Programme Community Interest Company (EPP CIC) has been working with NHS Oxfordshire to run self management classes in the county since 2008 and published the report, Self Care reduces Costs –the Evidence.

It uses people who have learned to ‘self manage’ their condition to teach others to do the same in a series of workshops.

Simon Knighton, chief executive of EPP CIC, said: “Unless we can address the culture of dependency that our current service tends to encourage, we will not be able to meet the demands of 21st century healthcare in the UK. The personal benefits of attending a self-management course have been demonstrated time and again.”