Care trust provides less than 1 in 5 with full diabetes checks

Mid Essex has come out as the worst Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for providing all the complication screening checks.
Data released by charity Diabetes UK shows an alarming disparity of care depending on which CCG you fall under. Each Clinical Commissioning Group has responsibility for commissioning healthcare services for the NHS surgeries that fall within the group. The difference between the best CCG and the worst is more than a four times difference in the chances of getting all health checks performed.
Stafford and Surrounds CCG came out as the best care provider with 78.3% of diabetes patients receiving all the health checks they are entitled to whilst Mid Essex provided all the health checks top a paltry 18.5% of patients. Mid Essex is not an isolated case either as 27 different CCGs failed to provide all the health checks to more than 50 per cent of patients.
Diabetes health checks allow your diabetes health team to screen for the presence of diabetes complications. The earlier diabetes complications are spotted, the better the chance of treating the complications and the less likely that severe outcomes, including kidney failure and amputations, will occur. Diabetes complications have a large impact upon people’s health and the amount of care and cost required to treat complications if they are allowed to develop unnoticed.
Charity, Diabetes UK, have been running their Health Watch online tool to allow patients to provide feedback on whether they have received all the diabetes health checks they are entitled to.
Speaking on the post code lottery situation that exists in the provision of health checks throughout England, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK, Barbara Young stated: “We want CCGs that do not give these checks to enough people at the moment to set out how they plan to improve the situation and for the Governments to explain how it is going to ensure people with diabetes can be confident they will get good quality care, wherever they live.”