Prescription medicines for diabetes now cost NHS England more than ever, figures have today revealed.
The £1.075billion forked out last year on drugs for the condition is almost double the £650million bill from a decade ago.
Diabetes is the most expensive condition the NHS has to treat, partly because at least 4.7million people in the UK – approximately one in every 14 – have it.
The costs are spread across insulin, diagnostic devices and blood sugar monitors, antidiabetic drugs and medications to treat people with hypoglycaemia.
And the true cost of the condition is far higher because diabetes causes numerous other conditions, with many patients suffering strokes or needing amputations.
Experts have blamed the country’s expanding waistlines and unhealthy lifestyles for an epidemic of type 2 diabetes, which is preventable.
The health service last year spent almost £1.1billion on prescriptions for insulin, antidiabetic medications and treatment of hypoglycaemia – its highest diabetes bill ever (stock image)
The medications which have triggered the biggest rise in cost are antidiabetic drugs – oral medicines used to lower blood sugar.
These cost NHS England more than twice as much as they did in 2008/09, with the cost rising from £168million to £540million in 2018/19.
Insulin, meanwhile, only costs 22.5 per cent more than it did a decade ago. The cost of the hormone has risen from £288m to £353m.
When the NHS breached the £1billion spending barrier for the first time ever last year, one charity boss said diabetes was the UK’s biggest health threat.
Diabetes UK’s head of policy, Robin Hewings, said: ‘The number of people diagnosed with the condition has doubled in the last 20 years, and it is responsible for 26,000 early deaths per year alongside serious complications such as blindness, amputation or stroke.’
Patients cost the NHS, on average, £327.78 each last year, but individual costs varied across the country.
In Northumberland, for example, patients cost an average of £208.07 for the year, while in Cornwall the average cost was £587.12.
Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for nine in 10 cases of the condition, can be triggered by obesity and inactive lifestyles, which are rising fast.
Around a quarter of British adults are now obese, as well as 20 per cent of 10 to 11-year-old children.
The combination of being overweight, eating too much sugar and not exercising enough means the body takes in high levels of energy but cannot use it because people don’t move enough.
When the body has more sugar than it can handle it produces signals which reduce how much of it is absorbed from the blood, which can lead to insulin resistance – a diabetes trigger.
Chairman of the National Obesity Forum, Tam Fry, told MailOnline: ‘The figure is staggering and will inevitably continue to rise until a UK government begins seriously to tackle obesity, the major cause of type 2 diabetes.
‘The overall cost of all the diseases triggered by obesity is £24bn every year – and faced with this figure it is unbelievable that none of the parties fielding candidates for election on December 12th have placed dealing with this crisis top of their health manifestos.
‘It’s a crisis that is blighting millions of people’s lives and could even bankrupt the NHS.’
Today’s statistics come after recent damning reports which revealed the staggering scale of how many NHS resources are used treating diabetic patients.
Whether they need help specifically for diabetes or have it as a secondary illness, people with the conditions make up one in 10 of all hospital visits.
There are 5,000 diabetic patients seeking healthcare every day and experts predict that, by 2030, a quarter of all hospital inpatients will have one of the conditions.
In a report released earlier this year, the charity Diabetes UK blames a ‘dramatic rise in obesity rates’ for rising type 2 diagnoses.
Today’s figures showed that five per cent of all drugs prescribed were given to treat diabetes.
And these made up for 12.5 per cent of all the money spent on prescriptions – a total of £8.63billion.
