According to recent diabetes news reports, leading diabetes charity Diabetes UK has slammed the Department of Health for painting an overly rosy picture of the state of diabetes prevention, detection and treatment.
A Department of Health report into the state of NHS diabetes care found some positive aspects of newly diagnosed diabetes care. The report praised strategies such as Putting Prevention First and Healthy Weight Healthy Lives for their influence on diabetes care .
However, the chief executive of Diabetes UK, Douglas Smallwood, said that the picture wasn’t nearly so positive. He reportedly commented: “Last year’s accident and emergency admissions of children with diabetes complications rose to 3,000, an increase of 8 per cent on the previous year. In view of such outcomes and the fact that the number of people with diabetes is set to double to four million by 2020, this report paints too rosy a picture of the current standard of diabetes care. We have a huge mountain to climb to ensure that all people with, and those at risk of, diabetes have access to the information, education, support and high-quality care to enable them to manage their condition on a day-to-day basis, with the help of specialist diabetes teams. The rate of progress in diabetes care needs to be much greater in the next five years than we’ve achieved in the previous five years.”

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