During Prime Minister’s Questions on 14 January, David Cameron has stated that he wants to make sure that new technology for the management of diabetes is rapidly adopted by the NHS. The comments were made in response to the publication of Diabetes UK’s State of the Nation report, and came a week after delivery of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s #CountMeIn petition for greater Government support.
Mr Cameron said: “I will certainly look at this report, because of all the healthcare conditions diabetes is one of the ones where, if we act on it fast, we could have a huge knock-on effect on the NHS.
“If we look at the costs of things such as amputations and other treatments because people are getting diabetes, we see that we could make an enormous impact. The honourable gentleman raises the issue of people being able to self-regulate. An enormous amount of exciting new technology is coming forward on diabetes, and I want to make sure that that technology is rapidly adopted by the NHS.”
The State of the Nation report shows there has been very little overall improvement in diabetes healthcare in the past year, with only 29% of people with type 1 diabetes aged under 40 receiving eight of their nine NICE-recommended care processes. The figure for the same age group of people with type 2 diabetes was 46%.
