Diabetes-related Complications

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. What an excellent debate we have had, and I thank the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for securing it. She is a passionate health campaigner and has made her mark in a very short time in the House. This is the second time I have seen her today, as I gave evidence to the Select Committee on Health this morning. It is excellent to see so many colleagues from both sides of the House in the Chamber today.

Diabetes-related complications are a vital issue and, sitting here, I agreed violently with much of what was said about the scale of the challenge, the need to step up and, indeed, some of the things that we need to do. I hope to use my time, as much as possible, to update the House on practical measures that the NHS and the Government are taking, as well as to hint, where I can, at policy yet to come. There is more to be said later in the summer on some areas. One reason why it is so important to have such debates is to keep up a drumbeat of discussion. One thing I have realised as a Minister is that momentum is a funny thing in politics.

[Mr Jamie Reed]

It certainly is.

[Jane Ellison]

I make no comment. Political momentum is important because it drives change in a way that is hard to pin down. We now have momentum on obesity and diabetes in a way that we did not a few years ago. The level of interest in this House is a good measure of that, so it is vital that we have such debates. It is also a measure of how seriously we take diabetes that we have included reducing diabetes care variation and preventing diabetes in the NHS’s mandate—it is right at the heart of our big asks of NHS England.

Before I continue, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many NHS staff who provide invaluable support to patients. Inevitably, in a debate where we are rightly stress-testing the system and asking where we can improve, it is easy to forget that masses of people out there are doing brilliant work. We have heard inspiring words today from two colleagues about their visit to see real specialists in action. Across the country there are people supporting patients with diabetes. There are also excellent third sector organisations such as Diabetes UK, with which we work closely, and JDRF, which does such great work on type 1. They both work with and independently challenge the Government, all with the aim of improving the lives of those with diabetes or at risk of it.

[Paula Sherriff]

Although I appreciate that the Minister undoubtedly has an incredibly busy schedule, I encourage her to contact the diabetes foot clinic at King's College hospital in London to arrange a visit. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, our visit was inspiring. I came away with much knowledge and real hope that we can make improvements.

[Jane Ellison]

I sat here thinking how interesting the visit sounded. My team has made a note of that. We had heard about the visit and how it had gone well, so it is great to hear that first-hand from the hon. Lady.

I will not repeat the shocking facts on diabetes, which have been well rehearsed and explained by Members in this debate, but suffice it to say that the impact is huge. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and others have made notable contributions drawing out the human cost of diabetes. People tend not to understand how devastating diabetes can be for patients and families, as well as the cost to the NHS, which in England we estimate to be £5.6 billion a year.

We have to work together to address diabetes. Before I talk about the action we are taking now and the progress we need to make, it is worth noting that we have come a long way. I have discussed that in some detail with our national clinical director, Dr Jonathan Valabhji, over the past year. The progress we have made through the quality and outcomes framework over the past decade has driven a step change in delivering better management and care for people in GP practices. Last year’s National Audit Office report showed that the relative risk of someone with type 1 or type 2 diabetes developing a diabetes-related complication has not changed, and indeed has fallen for most complications, despite the growing number of people with diabetes, so we have made progress. Clearly, the question now is how we can go much further. Diabetes is a key priority for us, and we want to see a measurable difference in the lifetime of this Parliament. There are four main areas in which we are taking action.

[Mr Jamie Reed]

Before the Minister moves on to the progress that is being made—she is right that we have come a long way over the past 10 years—will she undertake that the Department will consider not just the cost to the NHS of all diabetes-related complications, because we have been talking about this from a very NHS-centric point of view, but the cost to the economy of such complications?

[Jane Ellison]

We have been preparing and working on the childhood obesity strategy for some months, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have been looking at the wider cost to society and, obviously, projecting that forward, as has been done by many other economies in the developed world. There is an interesting piece by the McKinsey Global Institute on the cost to the developed world.

Specifically in the NHS, and going to the heart of the debate, there are four main areas in which we are taking action that we expect to deliver reductions in complications: reducing variation in the delivery of the three NICE treatment targets for blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol control; improving the take-up of structured education; improving foot care; and improving in-patient care. Reducing variation is always a theme of health debates and, frankly, it is a constant challenge in any system. The question is how we drive out variation, and Members have made a good point about how we support people to drive out variation. One of our goals for 2020 is a reduction in such variation in the management and care of people with diabetes.

The newly established CCG improvement and assessment framework has been mentioned by a number of Members. Diabetes is one of the clinical priorities in that framework, which will play a key role in delivering the challenge to variation. The chief executive of Diabetes UK is the chair of the panel of independent experts who are involved in the assurance process for that rating system. Diabetes is high on the IAF agenda. The framework will identify CCGs in need of improvement, and then NHS England will work with those CCGs to identify the nature of the changes needed and the type of support required to facilitate those changes.

To give some idea of the support available, we will be working with CCGs to consider the nature of the tasks they need to address. A key focus will be to help CCGs to map how their services compare with those in similar areas, to help them look at best practice from which they can learn and to introduce specific peer support through other programmes. CCGs will be supported in practical, hands-on ways. As we build the data picture of what is going on, we obviously need to support CCGs as they discover that they have variation, of which they may not even have been fully aware.

There are other areas not covered by the IAF that the Public Health England “Healthier Lives” website addresses. I encourage people to look at the vast amount of publicly available data for their local area. NHS Right Care is an important programme that has reducing variation at its core, and it is there to help CCGs and other partners to make step changes in the way they improve care. It will be very focused on diabetes care, and it has been improving services. It will be rolled out to all CCGs over the next 18 months, with practical support and sharing best practice at its heart.

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) and I have discussed structured education, and I share her frustration. Essentially, we know that structured education works and that it is being offered to far more people, but that take-up is low. We cannot keep doing the same thing; we must look at things differently. For example, working people with diabetes straight away pose a challenge involving the amount of time that they can take to attend a course. We want to improve take-up. We know that structured education makes a difference to people’s quality of life and, importantly, reduces their risk of developing complications, but we also know that we are not where we need to be.

It is one of my personal priorities to change that. The Department is working with NHS England and Diabetes UK on ways to improve the take-up of structured education, particularly by considering more diversity of provision through digital and web-based approaches, as well as what can be done to improve access to more traditional forms of support. Again, the improvement and assessment framework includes an indicator for the number of newly diagnosed diabetes patients who attend a course. However, we have to make it possible for CCGs to refer people to a course that they think is likely to be taken up. There is something in why such courses are not commissioned as much as they should be: people are aware of low take-up and it is a vicious circle. We need to address that. Next week, an expert round table is taking place with the national clinical director. It will consider options to update structured education, potentially including working with employers, and practical actions that we can take to overcome barriers. I expect to be able to say more about it in due course.

We regularly discuss improving foot care. Particularly for people with late-stage diabetes, it is a challenge and a threat, for reasons that have been well explained. The number of amputations is unacceptably high, and we want to reduce it. NHS England is working with a number of key stakeholders to publish a new framework to improve the delivery of hospital-based diabetic foot services. The framework makes it clear that all patients with diabetic foot problems should have rapid and equal access to services, and describes for commissioners what key elements are in place that they need to commission. The new national diabetes foot care audit provides data on all diabetic foot care services so they can measure their performance against the NICE clinical guidelines.

I note the concern expressed about the survey and the lack of take-up. NHS England is taking action on the issue of GP participation, but I might ask NHS England to write directly to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton to say specifically what it is doing, because I share her concerns about having the fullest possible picture. Again, transparency of information, along with improvement support through initiatives such as Right Care, will drive improvement. Interestingly, the variation on amputations does not follow many of the traditional patterns in terms of the burden of disease that we see in some other areas. We need to be able to examine the information at quite a local level, as support for patients is variable even within local areas, and we must expose that.

On inpatient care, the NHS’s focus is on ensuring that all hospitals have inpatient specialist teams to assess and help to manage inpatients with diabetes. Again, if we get that right, it can lead to a significant reduction in complications.

I will say a few words about prevention, as it is at the heart of any public health Minister’s agenda. Preventing people from developing type 2 diabetes in the first place helps to take them off the conveyor belt that can lead ultimately to complications and all the burden of disease that we have been discussing. At all points along that conveyor belt, there are things that we can and must do, and are doing, to make life better for people with diabetes. For example, I welcome the increasing focus of our major charities on prevention and explaining the role of prevention in fending off some of the most serious diseases from which people suffer.

Healthier You, the NHS diabetes prevention programme, goes to the heart of tackling the rising prevalence of diabetes. Around 90% of adults with diabetes have type 2, and an estimated 80% of cases of type 2 are related to lifestyle; as Members have said, it is a huge factor. The national diabetes prevention programme is, we think, the first at-scale diabetes prevention programme to be delivered anywhere in the world. This year it will refer at least 10,000 people to an evidence-based behaviour change intervention that has been proven through randomised controlled trials to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

I can confirm that the programme will be made available to up to 100,000 people by 2020. I know that there is great interest in it. We are learning from the seven demonstrator sites, which tested different approaches over the past year. Although the nature of the intervention is essentially common, there are different ways to deliver it, and we have learned a great deal. We are taking a phased approach, and the first wave of 27 areas covering 26 million people, or half the population, will open their doors to patients in the next few months and throughout 2016.

We are building up at pace. The interventions offer tailored, personalised help to reduce risk, including education on healthy eating and lifestyle and bespoke physical exercise programmes. If there is one thing that I ask of Members, it is to encourage their constituents to attend their NHS health check when invited to do so, as it is one of the gateways into the national diabetes prevention programme.

Of course, that is only part of a wider public health programme of preventing disease in the first place. Members have mentioned children. It is absolutely right that we should go way upstream to consider what we can do to tackle overweight and obesity in children. We will be launching our childhood obesity strategy in the summer. It will examine everything that contributes to children becoming overweight and obese and set out what can be done by all. We are looking at the entire environment around a child, so everything that Members have said that they hope will be considered as part of the strategy is being considered.

All parts of society, the public health system, Government and local government and industry have a part to play. The soft drinks industry levy announced by the Chancellor in the Budget is an important first step, and it has turbo-charged our discussions on the childhood obesity strategy. Its introduction in 2018 is driving reformulation of product, which every expert identifies as a key way to tackle obesity at population level. That is why there is a delay. I cannot comment in detail, but I assure hon. Members that we care about the same things that they do, and that all are being considered extensively.

[Mr Jamie Reed]

There are approximately 500,000 type 1 diabetics in the UK. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that continuous glucose monitors, flash glucose monitors and other emerging diabetic technologies are made available as a right on the NHS for people with type 1 diabetes?

[Jane Ellison]

Yes, I should say that many of my remarks have addressed type 2 diabetes, but that is not to say in any way that type 1 is less important. I will undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman on that, because there is work going on. As I said, many of my comments have dealt with type 2, but that is not to say that we are not also interested in addressing the challenges of type 1.

I am hugely heartened by the continuing parliamentary interest in this important subject. We will introduce the childhood obesity strategy and I have described all the other work on diabetes. It is good to know that there is so much parliamentary support from all parties for doing more, and particularly on investigating how to prevent diabetes from developing, to ensure that the next generation does not carry the same burden of disease as this one. It is a big challenge, but an unprecedented level of activity is taking place across our health system and the wider public health system, and in government at all levels. I look forward to updating Parliament further.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered diabetes-related complications.