PATCH PLEDGE
Thousands of diabetes patients will get life-changing glucose monitors – like Theresa May – on NHS
The PM already has one but thousands of other type 1 sufferers are currently subject to a postcode lottery
The NHS will invest up to £46 million to help people living with diabetes receive life-changing treatment.
As of April next year, every type 1 sufferer will be able to get hold of a free glucose monitor on prescription, health bosses have revealed.
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The move will bring to an end to the current postcode lottery for monitors, which sees patients in certain parts of the country missing out.
NHS England chief exec Simon Stevens has said that from spring 2019, the NHS will be ensuring that everyone who needs one will be able to get a Freestyle Libre device.
The wearable sensor scraps the need for inconvenient and sometimes painful finger prick blood tests by relaying glucose levels to a smartphone or e-reader, making it easier to notice when sugar levels are starting to rise or drop so action can be taken quicker.
It's as small as a £2 coin and it sits on the arm.
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Prime Minister Theresa May already has one but thousands currently are having to go without.
Mr Stevens announced the plans to coincide with World Diabetes Day, today.
"Increasingly the NHS is going to be offering patients this sort of technology to help them more easily manage their own long-term health problem," he said.
"In the NHS of the future, for many conditions, you're going to get NHS support direct from your smartphone or wearable device rather than having to trek to regular hospital outpatient appointments.
"Supporting people with modern tools to manage conditions such as type 1 diabetes is about to become much more widespread.
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"Innovations such as these also free up time and resources for the NHS as a whole."
The plan will allow patients to receive it on prescription from their GP or diabetes team and help them to better manage their blood sugar levels.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the monitors will save the NHS time and resources by preventing people from becoming ill in the first place.
He added: "This is the perfect example of the NHS seizing the opportunity of new technology to help people manage their conditions from the comfort of their own home.
"I want to see innovations like these become commonplace in our healthcare system so millions of people across the country stay out of hospital and can get on with their lives."
Currently four million people are living with diabetes in the UK - including a number of undiagnosed people.
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Around ten per cent have type 1 diabetes.
NHS England predicts that rolling this technology out across the country will see a rise in the numbers of people using it from 3-5 per cent to 25 per cent.
That'll mean up to 50,000 people with type 1 diabetes will receive support, costing between £41 million and £46 million a year.
I want to see innovations like these become commonplace in our healthcare system so millions of people across the country stay out of hospital and can get on with their lives
Matt Hancock, health secretary
Diabetes UK chief executive Chris Askew said the move was a huge step forward which will be welcomed by thousands of people with type 1 diabetes.
"Once in place, these measures should mean an end to the variation in availability and the postcode lottery that have dogged access to this life-changing technology," he explained.
"The diabetes crisis is a fight that must be fought on many fronts, and Diabetes UK will continue to champion access to new and established technology - and gold standard care - wherever variation and inaccessibility exist."
The announcement comes at the same time NHS Blood and Transplant services called for more organ donors after more diabetics required transplants.
MORE ON DIABETES
It said the number of people with diabetes needing simultaneous kidney and pancreas transplants rose by 5.5% to 172 in 2017-18 despite a drop in the total number of people on the waiting list.
NHS Blood and Transplant medical director John Forsythe said: "Diabetes is a condition that affects many parts of the body and over a long period of time it can lead to kidney failure, dialysis and the need for a kidney transplant.
"There are around 876 waiting for an organ transplant who also have diabetes and more than 80 per cent, 725, are waiting for a kidney, a combined kidney and pancreas, or pancreatic islets."
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