22.03.16
Diabetes prevention programme to be launched across 27 areas this year
The first nationwide diabetes prevention programme will cover 27 areas by the end of this year, NHS England has announced.
Healthier You: The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme will initially offer 20,000 places to those at risk of developing type 2 diabetes and treat an estimated 100,000 patients each year across the whole country by 2020.
The programme will provide patients with at least sixteen hours of tailored, personalised help to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes, including education on healthy eating and lifestyle, help to lose weight and physical exercise programmes, over nine months.
Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, said: “Type 2 diabetes is one the biggest health challenges of our time and millions of people in England are at risk of developing this serious disease.”
Diabetes UK warned last year that 3.3 million people in the UK now have diabetes, a 1.2 million increase in a decade, and that the rising costs associated with treating the disease are worth nearly £10bn a year and could bankrupt the NHS.
Type 2 diabetes, which can be prevented through lifestyle changes, accounts for 2.6 million cases.
One in six of all people in hospitals have diabetes, often in addition to other health conditions. It increases their risk of needing to be admitted, needing a longer stay and of dying of other conditions.
The Public Accounts Committee demanded last month that the NHS define a timetable to increase participation in the programme by April, in a report warning that diabetes prevention and treatment is still a postcode lottery.
The programme will be introduced in phases, with four providers that already have the infrastructure to support it being the first to offer it.
Three quarters of CCGs also bid to become part of the programme, with the successful bidders being next to implement it.
Different models of the programme were trialled in seven ‘demonstrator’ sites in March 2015.
The Diabetes Prevention Programme is being launched alongside the One You campaign, which aims to promote healthy lifestyle changes among middle-aged adults to reduce the risk of illness later in life.