Diabetes: Diagnosis

(asked on 27th October 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of people initially coded with (a) pre‑diabetes and (b) type 2 diabetes who were later found to have early or established type 1 diabetes in the most recent period for which data is available; and what steps his Department is taking with NHS England to help improve diagnostic accuracy in England.


Answered by
Ashley Dalton Portrait
Ashley Dalton
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 21st November 2025

Data is not collected centrally on the numbers or proportions of people initially coded with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes who were later found to have type 1 diabetes. The change of patient diagnosis would be reflected by a change of diagnosis code in clinical systems. However, the way that data extraction works for national audits means that it is not possible to track these types of changes.

Published data on diabetes registrations by GP practice can be found in the quarterly National Diabetes Audit (NDA) data release. This also contains data on care process and treatment target attainment as well as the number of new diagnoses by calendar year.

The latest quarterly report is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/national-diabetes-audit/core-q4-24-25/national-diabetes-audit-nda-2024-25-quarterly-report-for-england-integrated-care-board-icb-primary-care-network-pcn-and-gp-practice

The NDA supports improvements in diagnosis by assessing whether people with diabetes are receiving the recommended diagnostic checks and to identify variations and shortfalls in care delivery against National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

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