Risk of death from diabetes depends on where you live, find MPs

PATIENTS with diabetes are facing a “postcode lottery” of care with people in some parts of Britain six times more at risk of dying after being diagnosed, MPs have warned.

The Public Accounts Committee ac- cused the Department of Health and NHS England of painting an “unduly healthy” picture of the state of diabetes care. It said an additional 150,000 people a year are being diagnosed.

The MPs warned that there are “unacceptable variations” across the country in the proportion of people taking up education programmes to help them cope with the condition. In some parts of Britain, diabetes sufferers are 65 per cent more likely to die than the average in the local population, a year after being diagnosed. In other areas, the figure is as little as 10 per cent.

Areas where sufferers are more likely to die include Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire in the South West, Northum- berland and Yorkshire in the North and parts of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. Only 60 per cent get the annual checks recommended to help prevent longterm complications, the report found.

In 2013-14, there were an estimated 3.2 million people aged 16 or over with diabetes in England. The condition is estimated to cost the NHS £5.6 billion a year. Meg Hillier, chairman of the committee, said: “The NHS and Department for Health have been too slow in tackling diabetes, both in prevention and treatment.

“The number of people with diabetes is increasing, as is the number of patients who develop complications. Yet support available to patients and those at risk varies hugely across the country.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “The NHS has made big improvements in diabetes care by reducing mortality and complications arising from the disease – but any variation in care as this report highlights is deeply concerning.”