NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the whole, if at all possible, and it is not always possible, I prefer to avoid sibling rivalry so I shall now call Mr Keith Vaz.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I declare my interest as a type 2 diabetic and say how disappointed I am that the Secretary of State did not mention diabetes in his statement today? Fifty per cent. of adult diabetics have not had the nine care processes that are necessary. Will he ensure that commissioning groups are asked to ring-fence resources to help with diabetes prevention?

[Mr Lansley]

There are many conditions from which patients suffer that I did not mention in the statement because the purpose of the draft mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board is to improve the quality of services across the board, and the objectives we are looking for are about improvement across the whole service, rather than trying to isolate and identify individual conditions. But the NHS Commissioning Board will indeed go about the task of doing so. In recent years we have increased the proportion of patients with diabetes who have access to the nine recommended processes, and I know we will increase the number in future. I draw to the right hon. Gentleman’s attention, among the figures reflected in the report, the fact that, at the end of 2011-12, 99% of people with diabetes had been offered screening for diabetic retinopathy in the previous 12 months—an increase from 98.6% in the preceding quarter.