According to chief executive Barbara Young, the NHS is already spending 10% of its budget in treating diabetes, and the combination of budget pressures and this growing diabetes epidemic could create a ‘perfect storm that threatens to bankrupt the NHS’. The charity based its warning on figures from the Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Observatory, and believes that the vast majority of new cases will be Type 2 diabetes.
90% of all diabetes cases are accounted for by type 2 diabetes, which has been linked to obesity and unhealthy lifestyle factors. In this long-term condition, your body cannot produce enough insulin for it to function properly, or else the cells in your body do not use insulin properly. It is estimated that 850,000 people have Type 2 diabetes but do not know it.
At the moment, Diabetes UK says that around 3.7 million people in Britain have diabetes, a condition that can cause blindness, stroke, amputation and kidney failure. They are therefore calling the Government into action, with funding for a public health campaign to raise awareness about how diabetes affects wellness nationwide.
Young explained, ‘The healthcare system is already at breaking point in terms of its ability to provide care for people with diabetes and the result is that many people are developing health complications that could have been avoided and are dying early as a result…But the Government and the NHS do not seem to have grasped the scale of the impending crisis and at the moment we seem to be sleepwalking towards it. But the crucial point is that it is still not too late to take the action needed to avert it.’
A Department of Health spokesman responded, ‘We are taking wide-ranging action to tackle diabetes. First through prevention; by encouraging healthier lifestyles and identifying those at risk and supporting them to take the necessary action to prevent diabetes. Secondly, by better management of the condition, both in hospital and in the community. We hope to help prevent people getting diabetes in the first place, but by investing in the NHS and modernising it, we will also drive up the quality of care for those who have the disease.’