Action needed over rise in diabetes (From York Press)

Action needed over rise in diabetes

9:03am Friday 27th April 2012 in Health & Wellbeing

DIRE warnings from health economists in York on the rising cost to the NHS of diabetes care show a need for “urgent action”.

Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, was speaking following a report from the York Health Economics Consortium, which said the rising number of people developing type one diabetes could see treatment costs rise from £1.9million now to £4.2million in 2035.

She said: “This report shows that without urgent action, the already huge sums of money being spent on treating diabetes will rise to unsustainable levels that threaten to bankrupt the NHS.

“The most shocking part of this report is the finding that almost four-fifths of NHS diabetes spending goes on treating complications that in many cases could have been prevented.”

The consortium estimated the number of diabetics in the UK would rise to rise from 3.8 million to 6.25 million by 2035.