...as GPs spend a tenth of drugs budget on treating the condition

THE number of prescriptions for diabetes has risen by more than three quarters in a decade and now cost the NHS almost £1billion a year.

Some 5 million prescriptions were written last year – up from 8.9million in 006/7. Costing £983.7million, it means GPs now spend a tenth of their medicines budget on diabetes drugs as well as devices for patients to check their blood sugar levels.

There are an estimated 3.03million adults and children with diabetes – an increase of 55 per cent since 006/7.

Some 90 per cent of cases are type diabetes, which is linked to obesity, and the remainder are type 1, which is genetic. Both forms lead to patients’ blood sugar levels becoming abnormally high, putting them at risk of kidney failure, loss of eyesight, heart attacks and strokes.

Charities say a further 1 million are at risk of developing the condition due to their poor diets and lifestyles.

Around one in four adults in England are obese and at risk of developing type diabetes. Obesity causes the cells to become resistant to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. Symptoms include feeling thirsty, tiredness, blurred vision or sudden weight loss.

Experts said the rise in prescriptions was both a reflection of the growing number of people suffering from the condition and due to GPs becoming better at monitoring and treating the illness to try to avoid patients developing fatal complications.

The figures mean diabetes drugs now account for £1 out of every £9 that GPs spend on medicines. The most commonly prescribed drugs were metformin and insulin. The figures also include the electronic devices with which patients prick a finger several times a day to monitor blood sugar.

Simon O’Neill, a director at the charity Diabetes UK, said: ‘Diabetes is one of our biggest health crises and with 1 million people at risk of developing type diabetes, it’s clear that focusing on prevention is vital to prevent costs rising even higher.

‘The number of people diagnosed with diabetes has risen by 54 per cent in the last decade, so it’s no surprise that levels of prescribing have risen by almost the same level.

‘But the increase is indicative of the hard work doctors are doing to help people living with diabetes keep their blood glucose at safe levels, and preventing devastating, and costly, complications – such as cardiovascular and kidney disease – further down the line.’

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘It is clear from these figures that more people are living with both type 1 and diabetes long term – and this poses major challenges for the NHS.’

Tam Fry, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘This rise in the diabetes drugs bill is another tragic consequence of successive UK governments failing to tackle obesity, a major trigger for type diabetes.’

He predicted that the drugs bill would ‘escalate exponentially’ adding: ‘If nothing else breaks the NHS, this treatment will.’

‘One of our biggest health crises’