Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer pf 13 July 2021 to Question 28361 on Diabetes: Health Services, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve the public health provision of diabetes (a) treatment, (b) support, (c) care and (d) prevention services.

The NHS Long Term Plan set out a number of key ambitions, to improve care and outcomes for those individuals with diabetes. To support patients to potentially achieve remission from their type 2 diabetes while improving management and control, NHS England and NHS Improvement are piloting at scale, low-calorie diets. To improve care, NHS England and NHS Improvement have invested approximately £120 million of Transformation Funding into local services to target variation and improve performance in the treatment and care of people living with type 1 and 2 diabetes since 2017/18. This investment, overseen by local systems, covers the four treatment and care priorities, including: footcare teams; inpatient nursing teams; treatment target attainment; and, supported self-management.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s diabetes prevention programme identifies those most at risk of developing diabetes and refers them onto a behaviour change programme. Individuals receive tailored, personalised help to reduce their risk of developing stage 2 diabetes. Following a successful two-year pilot programme that saw a significant increase in the adoption of flash glucose technology across all clinical commissioning groups, over 35% of patients living with type 1 diabetes are now benefitting from flash glucose monitoring. Our focus on obesity and investment in weight management services also aims to prevent diabetes.