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 in response to the report entitled Recovering diabetes care: preventing the mounting crisis, published by Diabetes UK; and what estimate he has made of when the standard and speed of healthcare for people received with diabetes will return to pre covid-19 pandemic levels.

We are aware of the recent Diabetes UK report. NHS England’s Diabetes Programme continues to work with systems on the restoration of routine care provision and to address health inequalities.

The ‘2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance’ asks that processes within diabetes care are restored to pre-pandemic levels by the end of March 2023. In 2022/23, we have allocated £36 million to integrated care systems (ICS), weighted by local levels of economic deprivation, to support the recovery of routine diabetes care. Each ICS is finalising operational plans for prioritised activities to support recovery.