Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the variation in insulin pump uptake nationally; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that all specialist diabetes services respond to the National Diabetes Insulin Pump Audit.

The National Diabetes Insulin Pump Audit report recommended that the variation between specialist diabetic centres in pump use by people with type 1 diabetes warranted further investigation.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) programme has undertaken reviews of specialist diabetes centres with a wide remit looking at variation in outcomes and access across a range of care processes. This included assessment of workforce capability and capacity and access to technology in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance. The GIRFT report and recommendations are being developed following these reviews.

Noting this variation in access, the marked socioeconomic gradient in uptake of insulin pumps, and that there are several different technologies available to those with type 1 diabetes, not just pumps, NHS England and NHS Improvement are replacing the pump audit with a wider type 1 audit which will look at those on, and not on pumps and will also audit other technologies, both current and future.