An update from Chris Baker, founder of Spirit Health Group.
Spirit Health Group is a Leicester-based family of companies. Three divisions in the group excel in diabetes products and education services. First, there’s Spirit Healthcare which supplies products including blood glucose and ketone meters and strips, CareSens and TEE2, as well as the Insupen range of insulin pen needles. Second, there is Spirit Clinical Services, which offers the EMPOWER diabetes education programme. The third part of Spirit’s offering is Spirit Pharmacy, an online pharmacy that has a particular specialism in diabetes and offers free diabetes education and guidance.
Spirit Healthcare was founded in 2009 by Chief Executive Chris Barker, who feels passionately that healthcare should be easy, accessible and deliver amazing results. Chris Barker comments: “Spirit has an extensive background working in diabetes within the NHS. We are passionate about helping people to live better lives and become healthier and happier. We believe we can help people, especially those who live with diabetes, to better manage their condition by giving them easier access to the support they need.”
Proving that this is indeed the case, since 2019, Spirit’s TEE2 blood glucose test strips have become the fastest growing brand across the UK, with patient feedback highlighting how easy they are to use, as well as taking advantage of updated technology and advanced Bluetooth connectivity to aid monitoring. Likewise, the Insupen Original pen needles have been precision engineered to reduce friction points and pain and come in four different lengths and gauges to match patients’ needs. With 47% of people saying that they would be more likely to follow their prescribed regime if injections were less painful, Insupen Original offers patients and healthcare providers alike easier healthcare and better outcomes.
Empowering
Similarly, the EMPOWER diabetes education programme is proven to deliver excellent results, with over 99% of attendees saying they would recommend it to family and friends. EMPOWER has just been re-accredited with the QISMET certification, a quality standard specifically for diabetes education that covers all aspects of managing and running high quality education programmes that meet NICE and all other national requirements.
Traditionally a face-to-face programme, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Spirit was able to make EMPOWER available as a fully online service in just three weeks and started running its first remote courses in additional languages in July, helping educate patients with Type 2 diabetes who may not have English as their primary language. Expanding upon EMPOWER’s accessibility, the virtual education course is now being delivered in Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu.
Finally, Spirit Pharmacy offers free diabetes support, easy online prescription ordering with free delivery and automatic order reminders – all designed to make it easier for patients to manage their diabetes. Patients who choose Spirit Pharmacy will benefit from the knowledge and expertise of qualified pharmacists with a special interest in diabetes, offering prescription dispensing and advice services with the convenience of being online.
