Diabetes: Mental Health Services

(asked on 22nd May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will increase resources for (a) emotional and (b) mental health support for people living with diabetes.


Answered by
Seema Kennedy Portrait
Seema Kennedy
This question was answered on 10th June 2019

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increasing the provision of mental health support for all patients who require it. The importance of addressing the mental health needs of people with diabetes is recognised and further work is underway to consider the most effective routes for supporting this as part of the future development of services.

On 21 March 2018, NHS England and NHS Improvement, along with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, published ‘The Improving Access to Psychotherapy Therapy (IAPT) Pathway for People with Long-term Physical Health Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms.’ The guidance outlines the IAPT pathway, and accompanying benchmarks, to support the national expansion of IAPT services for adults with long term conditions and medically unexplained symptoms.

In addition, a project working group has been established involving NHS England, Diabetes UK and other stakeholders which aims to develop a care pathway which, when adopted locally, would help improve access to emotional and psychological support for people with diabetes.

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