Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department has allocated for the provision of insulin pumps for local services in the (a) 2025-26 and (b) 2026-27 financial years.

Insulin pumps were recommended for certain groups of the type 1 diabetes population in 2008 via the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) Technology Appraisal TA151.

The National Health Service is legally obliged to fund and resource medicines and other treatments recommended by NICE’s Technology Appraisals, and commissioners are required to meet the costs. Local integrated care board leaders should already have plans in place, and budgets identified, to meet the needs of their populations who meet the recommended eligibility criteria of TA151, in accordance with the NHS Constitution.

A national contribution is available to meet 75% of the additional costs of the requirements of NICE TA943 on hybrid closed loop (HCL) systems, as a funding variation was agreed with NICE. Insulin pumps are one of the components of HCL systems.