Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of lower limb amputations associated with diabetes and peripheral arterial disease.

It is the responsibility of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to commission the majority of services for people with diabetes. The CCG Outcomes Indicator Set contains a number of indicators which are relevant to the delivery of of diabetes care, including an indicator relating to complications associated with diabetes including emergency admission for lower limb amputation.

The latest National Diabetes Audit (NDA) shows that over 85% of all those with diabetes in England and Wales received a foot examination in 2012/13. A new module of the NDA, the National Diabetes Foot Care Audit, has been launched to establish the extent to which national guidelines on the management of diabetic foot disease are being met. The audit will provide local teams with the evidence needed to tackle identified differences in practice which will lead to an overall improvement in the management and outcomes for patients. Local and national level results will be available in March 2016.

The latest NDA also demonstrates significant reductions in the risk of developing heart failure for individuals with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, significant reductions in mortality for individuals with Type 2 diabetes, as well as trends showing a reduction in the risk for any individual with diabetes of developing angina, heart attack, stroke, major amputation and end-stage kidney disease.

Tackling diabetes is of great concern to this Covernment. Building on the National Diabetes Prevention Programme, the Department is developing its plans to improve outcomes for those at risk of and with diabetes. These will be announced in due course.