Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will re-introduce the NHS Diabetes dedicated improvement service.

NHS Improving Quality (NHS IQ) was founded on 1 April 2013 through a collaboration agreement between the Department of Health and NHS England. This was in recognition of the need for a system wide focus on improvement to be provided by establishing an improvement body within NHS England. The responsibilities of NHS Diabetes have now been passed to NHS IQ.

NHS IQ has a number of programmes of work under way to reduce premature mortality from diabetes and improve the care of people with diabetes including:

- piloting new pathways of care to detect and manage asymptomatic coronary heart disease in patient groups with diabetic foot disease with the aim of reducing premature mortality in these patients by 600 lives per year from 2015-16;

- supporting the NHS Health Check programme, a key component of which is detecting the risk factors for diabetes;

- supporting the implementation of the Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy;

- working to achieve patient centred, co-ordinated services for people living with long-term conditions, including diabetes; and

- providing signposting and links to useful improvement resources relating to diabetes.

More information on this work can be found on the NHS IQ website at:

www.nhsiq.nhs.uk