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 tackle disparities in diabetes care (a) access and (b) treatment for people living in low socioeconomic areas.

The Government continues to support local authorities to make provision for the NHS Health Check, England’s flagship cardiovascular disease prevention programme.

The programme aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, and some cases of dementia among adults aged between 40 and 74 years old. Each year, the programme engages over one million people.

A review of the programme in 2021 found that there were higher rates of NHS Health Check attendance among people over 55, women, black African and Asian ethnic groups. Across all ethnic groups, attendance is lowest amongst people in the most deprived decile.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to providing a weight management services for people with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or hypertension and with a body mass index of 30 or higher, adjusted appropriately for ethnicity.

Diabetes is also one of six major groups of conditions that we aim to tackle through the Major Conditions Strategy. The Strategy will set out the supporting and enabling interventions the centre can make to ensure that integrated care systems and the organisations within them maximise the opportunities to tackle clusters of disadvantage in their local areas where they exist. This will include addressing unwarranted variation in outcomes and the care people receive in the context of the recovery from the pandemic.