Diabetes costs NHS £1 million an hour

Last Modified: 08 Oct 2008
Source: ITN

Diabetes costs the National Health Service (NHS) £1 million an hour and the financial burden is set to get worse, according to a report.

There are currently 2.75 million people in the UK with the condition.

The Diabetes UK report says two million of those people have Type 2 of the condition which is linked to lifestyle factors such as obesity.

The warning is that that number could rise to four million by 2025.

Around 250,000 people in the UK also have Type 1 diabetes, which often develops in childhood.

NHS spends a tenth of its budget each year, or £9 billion, on treating diabetes and its consequences, with complications such as blindness, kidney failure, stroke, heart disease and limb amputation.

Diabetes was once seen only in the over 40s, but a growing number of children are being diagnosed.

Eight out of ten diabetics die of heart disease and stroke and there are calls for better care, especially as it is feared that half a million people are thought to be undiagnosed.

The report said: "Most of these cases will be Type 2 diabetes, attributable to an ageing population and rapidly rising numbers of overweight and obese people.

"It is frightening to think that an increasingly unhealthy lifestyle has been a major factor in Type 2 diabetes, once seen only in the over-40s, being diagnosed in a growing number of younger people and even children."

More than one in ten of all deaths among 20 to 79-year-olds in England can be attributed to diabetes, the report added, and by 2010, this figure is set to rise to one in eight.

Douglas Smallwood, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said: "Diabetes leads to heart disease, stroke, amputations, kidney failure and blindness and causes more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined.

Alongside the report, the charity launched a new Silent Assassin campaign to highlight the seriousness of diabetes.

It urges everyone, including overweight and obese people, to make changes to their lifestyles to cut their chance of developing the disease, and calls for better care for existing diabetics.

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