A new report published in Diabetic Medicine has projected that the NHS’s annual spending on diabetes in the UK will increase from £9.8 billion to £16.9 bn over the next 25 years. This would result in the NHS spending 17% of its entire budget on the condition.
The Impact Diabetes report also suggests that the cost of treating diabetes complications is expected to nearly double from £7.7 bn to £13.5 bn by 2035/6. The report goes on to highlight the fact that 79% of current NHS diabetes spending is for preventable complications of the condition. Investing more in the checks and services that help people manage the condition and thereby reduce the risk of complications could prove to be less expensive than the present approach. The report quantifies the current costs of direct patient care for diabetes, which includes treatment, intervention and complications, and the indirect costs of diabetes, such as those related to increased death and illness, work loss and the need for informal care, and also predicts the UK’s future costs of diabetes. According to the report, the total cost associated with diabetes in the UK currently stands at £23.7 bn and is predicted to rise to £39.8 bn by 2035/6. Commenting on the report, Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, 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. But 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 failure to do more to prevent these complications is both a tragedy for the people involved and a damning indictment of the failure to implement the clear and recommended solutions. Unless the Government and the NHS start to show real leadership on this issue, this unfolding public health disaster will only get worse.”
