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Healthier Futures - Diabetes prevention

Diabetes is one of the most pressing health challenges facing our population.

Around 22,000 people with diabetes die early every year. Type 2 diabetes is a leading cause of preventable sight loss in people of working age and is a major contributor to kidney failure, heart attack, and stroke.

There are currently 3.4 million people with Type 2 diabetes in England with around 200,000 new diagnoses every year. 

Diabetes prevalence is much higher in the Black Country and West Birmingham compared to the rest of England, with over 9% of people in Sandwell and West Birmingham living with the condition compared to 6.4% inEngland as a whole. 

One in six of all people in hospital have diabetes – while diabetes is often not the reason for admission, they often need a longer stay in hospital, are more likely to be re-admitted and their risk of dying is higher.

The cost of Diabetes on the health and care system is large but the cost to those living with the condition is even greater.

Our vision is:

  • Through addressing wider determinants of health, delivery of lifestyle services and delivery the National Diabetes Prevention Programme (NDPP), slow the rate of increase of Type 2 diabetes.
  • Identify people living with diabetes early and provide good quality care including testing of programmes to reverse diabetes (i.e. low calorie diet programmes).
  • Improve diabetes treatment and care through improvements in primary care, and structured education.
  • Improve diabetes treatment and care for those at highest risk of complication by increasing integration between Primary Care Networks, community services and acute care.
  • Respond effective to complications from diabetes through improvement in in-patients services.

While Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented and is not linked to lifestyle, Type 2 diabetes is largely preventable through lifestyle changes. We are committed to preventing diabetes where we can through our Diabetes Prevention Programme.

Approximately 100,000 (82%) of the estimated 120,000 people living with diabetes in the Black Country and West Birmingham have been identified, compared to 80% in England. We will focus as a system to maintain and increase the number of people we identify through our diabetes screening to ensure they get the support they need.

Working together we aim to also:

  • Support for people living with diabetes to achieve recommended treatment target
  • Support people to access our expanded range of structured education
  • Address the inequalities that exist in the number of people recorded as living with Diabetes from socio-economically disadvantaged groups

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