Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they are working with NHS England to ensure equitable access to diabetes innovations, particularly for patients from disadvantaged and ethnic minority backgrounds.

NHS England is working at a national level on behalf of the Department as part of a wider equality monitoring review programme. This review is exploring how best to update equality monitoring arrangements, including ethnicity categories, by reference to the protected characteristics outlined in the Equality Act 2010.

The National Diabetes Audit (NDA) is a major national clinical audit, which measures the effectiveness of diabetes healthcare against National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guidelines and NICE quality standards, in England and Wales. This includes NICE’s guidance on diabetes innovations like continuous glucose monitors and hybrid closed loop systems. The NDA is delivered by NHS England, in partnership with Diabetes UK.

The NDA consistently reveals inequalities in diabetes care and outcomes across different socioeconomic and demographic groups. People living in more deprived areas, younger individuals, and some ethnic minorities experience poorer access to care processes and treatment targets compared to their counterparts in less deprived areas and among older individuals.