The NHS Business Services Authority has released its figures for the prescription of medicines and appliances used for the treatment of diabetes in a primary care setting in England that are dispensed in the community.

The data does not include figures on medicines used in secondary care, prisons, or issued by a private prescriber.

In the NHS Long Term Plan, diabetes is one of the priorities for care and quality outcomes.

The research found that there were 60.3 million drug items used in treating diabetes prescribed in England at a cost of £1.25 billion. This is 13.0% of the total spend on all prescription items in England. This figures show an increase from 2015/2016 where 49.7 million diabetes items were prescribed in England at a cost of £958 million, which was 10.4% of the total spend on all prescription items.

According to the statistics, there were 3.2 million identified patients who were prescribed drugs used in diabetes in England in 2021/2022. This represents a 4.95 per cent increase from 2020/2021.

The research shows that the group most commonly prescribed drugs for use in diabetes was male patients ages 60-64, followed by male patients aged 70 to 74 and male patients aged 65 to 69.

The figures show that two-and-a-half times as many people are receiving prescribing for diabetes from practices in the most deprived areas of the country, compared to the least deprived.

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