Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how his Department judges which steps to raise diabetes awareness have been most effective.

Public Health England (PHE), NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence all play a key role in raising awareness of diabetes at national level, while locally this is shared between public health, clinical commissioning groups and individual practitioners. Strategic Clinical Networks (SCNs) also have an important role to play in ensuring appropriate clinical advice to local commissioners and disseminating evidence about effectiveness.

Organisations such as Diabetes UK, Silver Star Diabetes, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists, also play a valuable and important part in raising the awareness of diabetes. Individual Members of Parliament and the All Party Parliamentary Group also raise awareness of diabetes on an ongoing basis.

There is evidence to support the effectiveness of brief interventions in raising awareness of the risks associated with obesity and diabetes as part of routine clinical interactions, but we are not aware of any analysis on the most effective ways of raising awareness of diabetes.

The NHS Health Check raises awareness of diabetes and its symptoms by assessing and discussing with participants the risk factors for this disease, along with other conditions relevant to the programme. PHE is responsible for supporting local authorities in implementing the NHS Check programme.

The social marketing programme Change4Life aims to help everyone in England to eat well, move more and live longer and in doing so contributes to tackling excess weight. Type 2 diabetes is used as an example of the potential consequences of inactivity/unhealthy diets in the Change4Life and Start4life campaigns.