Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to SGLT2 inhibitors for patients with (a) type 2 diabetes, (b) chronic kidney disease and (c) heart failure.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based best practice guidance for the National Health Service.

The NICE has been able to recommend two SGLT2 inhibitors, empagliflozin and dapagliflozin, for treating chronic kidney disease and for treating chronic heart failure with reduced, preserved, or mildly reduced ejection fraction, subject to specified clinical criteria. The NICE has also recommended several SGLT2 inhibitors as monotherapy, or in combination with other drugs, for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended in a NICE appraisal, usually within three months of final guidance, so these treatments should now be available for healthcare professionals to prescribe to NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations.

In September 2024, the NICE added links to the relevant technology appraisal guidance on SGLT-2s, namely empagliflozin and dapagliflozin, to the guideline Chronic kidney disease: assessment and management. This is to provide easy access to the relevant appraisal guidance at the right point in the guideline, and to help users find the information more easily.

The NICE is updating its guideline Chronic heart failure in adults: diagnosis and management, to reflect changes in clinical practice and the introduction of new drug classes, such as SGLT2 inhibitors, since the guideline was first published, ensuring that the NICE’s guideline recommendations and treatment algorithms are up to date, so that all patients can receive equitable care. The updated guidance is expected to be published in August 2025. The NICE publishes a range of resources to support services in putting its recommendations into practice.

The NICE has also published a general practice indicator on chronic kidney disease and SGLT2 inhibitors. NICE indicators measure outcomes that reflect the quality of care or processes and can be used in a number of different settings to support high quality care, including in the uptake of NICE-recommended treatments, such as SGLT2 inhibitors.