Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients with type 1 diabetes use (a) finger-pricking monitoring and (b) continuous monitoring to track their glucose levels.

Standard care for type 1 diabetes involves regularly measuring blood glucose levels by self-monitoring, blood testing, or by using a continuous glucose monitor, real-time or intermittently scanned.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed that 20% of people with type 1 diabetes would benefit from life changing flash glucose monitors. Data to quarter three of 2022/23 shows that 73% of people with type 1 diabetes were prescribed flash glucose monitoring, against the 20% target. As a result of the recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance that also recommended that insulin dependent patients with type 2 diabetes should benefit from flash or continuous glucose monitoring devices, we are now starting to see a growth in prescribing within the type 2 diabetes patient group.