Certainly diabetes and diabetes prevention are hot topics in healthcare at the moment and why shouldn't it be?
There are currently 3.9 million people with diabetes (6.2% of the country). 700 people are diagnosed with the condition every single day and 590,000 have diabetes but don't know it yet. 12% of the country are at risk high of diabetes.
Diabetes is responsible for:
- 20,000 premature deaths
- 1/5th of hospital admissions for heart failure, heart attacks and strokes
- 135 amputations per week
- Most common cause of kidney failure
Diabetes accounts for around 10% of the annual NHS budget. This is nearly £10 billion a year or £1 million every hour. Compare that with the cost of cancer £5.86 billion on cancer care, which is 5.6% of the UK’s total health spend.
These figures are mostly taken from Diabetes UK "State of the Nation - Challenges for 2015 and beyond" which is a publication I strongly recommend. The next update in due in July/August 2016.
A report published in the Journal Diabetic Medicine has projected that the NHS’s annual spending on diabetes in the UK will increase from "£9.8 billion to £16.9 billion over the next 25 years, a rise that means the NHS would be spending 17% of its entire budget on the condition". Will NHS funding be increased to accommodate this? It doesn't look likely.
Below is one of my favourite charts from the Diabetes UK report. It shows what great strides have been made to improve Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and Strokes/Mini Strokes (TIAs) in particular. However, the slide I would like to see is this data projected over the next 10 -20 years. Will all the amazing achievements in these conditions get eroded by the increase burden of diabetes?
There are lot more reasons why diabetes is worth talking about as a diabetes manager.
You might be fed up with talking about it, but diabetes isn't going away. So get used to it.
You might be fed up with talking about it, but diabetes isn't going away. So get used to it.
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