Diabetes: 10-Year Health Plan

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right in his observations, which play to the point of the NHS that we want to see not just now but in the future. Noble Lords may have heard the announcement earlier this week that the Government are committing the necessary funding to screen babies early in their lives through the use of genomics, in order to, as the noble Lord said, identify underlying conditions that can be dealt with early on. There are some that cannot be prevented, but if they are diagnosed and anticipated, their management will be much better.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, continuous glucose monitoring and Mounjaro have helped me to come off insulin after 20 years of daily injections and have greatly improved my diabetic control. Such innovations are undoubtedly a cost saving to the NHS in the long run. Does the Minister think we are looking far enough into the future when we consider the cost-benefit analysis of their use? How can NHS spending plans take into account their long-term benefits to the economy by keeping people in work and getting many people back to work?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, knows that it is always good that we hear about his own experience, because he epitomises the changes that are possible. I believe there is an understanding—not least because, as noble Lords will know, the Chancellor very recently gave the department a settlement that was, in large part, because of not just immediate need but looking to the future and the kind of NHS that is fit for the future we will see identified in the 10-year plan when it is published. Technology is certainly a huge part of that, which is why CGM and the hybrid closed loop system—the latter of which began to be rolled out in April 2024—are so important. There have been huge advances and they will be part of that NHS of the future that we seek to build.