Diabetes Care — House of Commons, 2016-03-03
Topic: Health
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): Part of the challenge is because much of the effort that is put in relates to the preventive agenda and the contributory factors. That is one of the challenges in teasing such figures apart. However, I will reflect on whether we can do more in terms of health and wellbeing boards To incentivise improvements in the treatment and care of children and young people with diabetes, the best practice tariff for paediatric diabetes provides an annual payment for every child and young person under the age of 19 with the condition, providing that 13 standards of care are met. One of those standards relates to structured education. As the right hon. Members for Leicester East and for Knowsley know, I am passionate about making changes to the way in which we do structured education. We know that it works and that it is very good when people do it, but we also know that a lot of people are not accessing it. I am looking really hard at how we could take a new and radical approach, including whether there are any tech solutions, and I look forward to reporting back on that Our ambitions extend further than creating a level playing field. We want the management of and care for diabetes to be driven up right across the board in order to improve outcomes. The NHS is working with a number of other organisations to help to promote services that are integrated around patients’ needs across all settings. It is implementing a customer service platform to empower patients with diabetes to self-manage by booking their own appointments, managing their prescriptions, monitoring the care they have received and viewing their personal health records I fear that time will not allow me to touch on prevention in as much detail as I would have liked, but I want to emphasise just how seriously we take it. The right hon. Member for Leicester East has outlined the reasons why it is important, including the escalating figures and how much the rising tide of type 2 diabetes associated with lifestyle will cost the NHS in the future. The factors can be modified, and one of the most powerful weapons in our armoury is the NHS diabetes prevention programme, which is the first national type 2 diabetes prevention programme to be delivered at scale. Its aim is to help people identified as at the highest risk of developing type 2 diabetes to lower their weight, increase physical activity and improve their diet through intensive lifestyle intervention programmes. I am pleased to inform the House that the first providers will be announced by the NHS shortly, and the programme will move ahead The programme will also link to the NHS health check programme. Almost 3 million NHS health check offers were made in 2014-15 and almost 1.5 million appointments taken up. That is vital for first awareness and my constituency knows how important early diagnosis can be as a result of the checks carried out by Silver Star when it visited us The right hon. Gentleman talked about other important referral routes, including engagement with pharmacists, and I will pass on his concerns to the Minister for Community and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who has responsibility for community pharmacies The right hon. Gentleman criticised the responsibility deal, but I think it has achieved a lot. We have made some important gains working in voluntary partnership with industry, such as the voluntary front-of-pack nutritional labelling scheme, which has greatly empowered consumers to know what is in their food. That accounts for about two thirds of the market for pre-packed food and drinks, but I accept that the challenge is to go further. We will announce more about our childhood obesity strategy this summer. We will also monitor the impact of NHS England’s proposal for the introduction of a sugar tax on the NHS estate. It will be interesting to see the results of that consultation. The Sugar Smart app has empowered 1.6 million consumers to date to know more about what is in their food I thank the right hon. Gentleman again for bringing these important issues to the House. I am absolutely sure that we will discuss them again, because this vital agenda is right at the heart of the Government’s health programme.