Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional support his Department is providing to people living with diabetes who are more likely to experience serious complications from covid-19.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic diabetes care has remained a priority and general practice has supported patients with long term conditions to access care and support.

Recognising that access to face to face care has been limited, NHS England and NHS Improvement have expedited a procurement, to make two remote programmes available to provide education and self-management support for children and adults living with type 1 diabetes. The national diabetes programme team has also developed an on-line education programme of resources for people living with type 2 diabetes.

The NHS England and NHS Improvement Diabetes Programme Team has helped to develop a COVID-19 risk prediction model to support shared decision making between clinicians and patients based on more accurate information as well as discussions on how to reduce risk of COVID-19 for all, including those with diabetes.