Medicine to treat diabetes in England now accounts for 10% of the yearly total spend on prescriptions, Health and Social Care Information Centre research revealed.
This is part of a steady increase of diabetes spending, up from 9.5% in 2013/14 and from 6.6% in 2005/06.
There were 6.7 million insulin items prescribed, accounting for 14.1% of all items prescribed for diabetes, and there was 33.4 million anti-diabetic drug items prescribed, accounting for 70.8% of all items prescribed for diabetes.
“It shows that ten pence in the pound of the primary care prescribing bill in England is being spent on managing diabetes, ” said Ian Bullard, the responsible statistician for the report.
London was the region with the largest amount of items prescribed for diabetes, with 5.8% of the total number of diabetes prescriptions, and Birmingham and the Black Country was second, with 5.2%.
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear has the least number of items prescribed for diabetes in England, with 3.7% of the total. Durham, Darlington & Tees, Merseyside, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly were the second lowest, all with 3.8%.
