Action for Diabetes sets out how NHS England plans to tackle diabetes in 2014.
Primary care services will be able to trial new tools to ensure earlier diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, a new report by NHS England has stated.
Action for Diabetes sets out how NHS England plans to tackle diabetes in 2014.
It outlines how more prevention for Type 2 diabetes is needed, the importance of early diagnosis, and how to support people to manage diabetes and improve their quality of life.
It sets out the activity that NHS England is undertaking as a direct commissioner of GP and other primary care services by developing a strategic framework for commissioning primary care. The framework for commissioning of GP services will be published in 2014 and will set out the action being taken at national level to support commissioners in developing joint strategies for primary care as part of their five year strategic plans. It also details how GPs will be helped to provide good care and best practice and outlines resources available to commissioners of hospital-based care to improve treatment for people with diabetes.
The vision pledges that NHS England will continue to work with Public Health England on the roll out of NHS health checks, which aim to prevent and diagnose thousands of cases of type 2 diabetes each year.
Professor Jonathan Valabhji, national clinical director for obesity and diabetes at NHS England, said: ‘Diabetes is a growing problem and is a good example of why we need new thinking about how to provide integrated services in the NHS in the future.
‘There is more to do on the individual management of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients in the community, on hospital care, on services being integrated around patient needs and wants, and, underlying all of that, care being safe.'
The report is for CCGs and the wider community interested in diabetes care to see what action NHS England is taking in this area to improve care for people with, and at risk of, diabetes.
A further key point made in the report made in the report by NHS England, is that it will work with primary care services to trial and roll out new tools to help ensure earlier diagnosis across a range of conditions including type 2 diabetes, to work on projects to reduce the high death rates associated with diabetic foot disease whether it be due to type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and on the transition of young people to adult services.
If the condition is not diagnosed early and managed properly people can potentially suffer life-limiting and even life-threatening complications like blindness, kidney disease, foot disease, heart disease and stroke.
The full report can be accessed here: http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/act-for-diabetes.pdf