The UK government and NHS England have launched the biggest conversation about the NHS ever, to ‘help build a health service fit for the future’ and are asking NHS staff and health experts to share their experiences, views and ideas for fixing the NHS.
The conversation will help shape the government’s 10-year Health Plan published in Spring 2025. With more than
5.6 million people living with diabetes in the UK it’s more important than ever that we tell the government that diabetes is serious.
The government has set out three major shifts it wants to see the NHS make: Sickness to Prevention, Hospital to Community, and Analogue to Digital. These shifts were identified in response to Lord Ara Darzi’s Independent Investigation of the Nation Health Service in England, published in September 2024. This showed that the NHS requires significant reform to reduce the pressure on its services. We fed into this report, by sharing our findings on inequalities in diabetes care and the number of people with diabetes missing out on essential checks.
Find out more about Lord Darzi’s Report
We have been getting involved with the conversation to make sure that the diabetes NHS workforce has the support and resources needed to help you better support your patients living with or at risk of diabetes. We will be telling the government what these three shifts could mean for diabetes care:
Sickness to Prevention
- Make sure everyone with diabetes receives all of their essential checks, which can help to prevent complications and detect them when they are most treatable.
- Identify people at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes early and offer them support to prevent it.
- Identify the 1.2 million people in the UK living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes and make sure they can access care and support to live well with the condition.
Hospital to Community
- Make sure the NHS is able to deliver services that people with diabetes need closer to home, including Diabetes Specialist Nurses, mental health support and peer support.
- Make sure everyone living with diabetes is on the best technology and treatments for them, which would help to keep people well and reduce emergency hospital admissions.
Analogue to Digital
- Make sure everyone eligible for diabetes technology has access to it and healthcare professionals can easily access the data from it.
- Make sure healthcare professionals have access to digital health records and test results in different settings to avoid repetition and wasted appointments.
How you can get involved
The NHS Change website has several ways that you can get involved directly:
A survey where you can share your ideas and views about the best parts of the NHS, what the challenges are, and the three shifts the government wants to make.
A form for you to share your experiences of supporting a patient/s in more detail.
There are several online discussions open to all staff across the NHS, social care and public health being held between 19 November and 3 December. You can register here.
- Local leaders can download a 'Workshop in a Box' from the NHS Change website, which can help you to gather and share insights from your community. It includes a facilitator briefing guide, a slide deck for facilitators running sessions and a feedback form for online submission.
Further details on how to get involved can be found on the government website:
We believe that everyone should have an opportunity to share their thoughts to help improve healthcare within the UK, and as part of our Diabetes is Serious campaign, we will keep you updated: sign up here.
