Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps health and wellbeing boards take to monitor their progress on raising awareness of diabetes.

Health and Wellbeing Boards are responsible for the development of Joint Strategic Needs Assessments to identify the current and future health and wellbeing needs of the local population, and a Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy to meet these needs. This may include an analysis and plans in respect of the prevalence, impact and levels of awareness of diabetes among the local population.

Local communities are able to see what boards have chosen to prioritise and how they are monitoring progress towards delivery thanks to the duties of openness under which Boards must work; and to hold boards to account through the local democratic process.

The Department has not highlighted any particular issue over another for attention by Boards, nor has the Department specified the way in which they should monitor progress towards their delivery of their priorities. This would risk undermining the importance of Boards being locally-owned and responding to the needs of their local populations.