Concerns over lack of health checks for thousands

Sheffield Primary Care Trust didn’t offer a single check, while East Riding gave just five, according to Diabetes UK.

NHS Health Checks were introduced four years ago by the Department of Health and aim to detect people, aged over 40, with Type 2 diabetes and others at high risk of developing the disease, which can lead to complications including kidney failure and stroke.

In the UK there are 3.7 million people with diabetes - including an estimated 850,000 with Type 2 diabetes who don’t realise they have the condition. Diabetes is now nearly four times as prevalent as all the cancers combined.

However Sheffield PCT said yesterday they were confident in their own nationally-recognised scheme called Citywide Initiative to Reduce Cardiovascular disease (CIRC).

The NHS last year spent £1m an hour on diabetes - with 80 per cent going on managing avoidable complications.

Performance across Yorkshire was patchy - Bradford and Airedale Teaching PCT offered 1.6 per cent checks (2,158 people) and Kirklees just two per cent (1,982 people), and Calderdale PCT 6.5 per cent (3,235 people).

The best performers were Barnsley PCT (20.8 per cent or 12,780 people) and Wakefield District PCT (25.7 per cent or 26,992), the only two PCTs in Yorkshire to meet the recommended target of offering 18 per cent of the eligible population a check.

Regional Manager for Diabetes UK Northern and Yorkshire Linda Wood said: “Diabetes UK estimates that people will have had undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes for between seven and nine years before diagnosis and when they are diagnosed will have one of the complications, blindness, heart disease, stroke, amputations, which are all consequences of poorly controlled Type 2 diabetes.”

Mrs Wood said the lack of checks in Sheffield and the East Riding were a “tragic failure.”

She said: “NHS and local authority leaders in the area need to start giving this programme a much higher priority than has previously been the case. Until this happens, they will be letting down local people who have either undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes or are at high risk of developing the condition. Urgent action is needed.”

However Sheffield PCT said they had been operating their own system, which was the forerunner to health checks, and this had had a “dramatic” impact on reducing coronary heart disease and reducing health inequalities.

They didn’t believe the formal programme was the most cost-effective way of dealing with the problem.

A spokeswoman added: “We remain committed to providing the best possible care for everyone in Sheffield and a recent re-design of diabetes services in Sheffield has focused on improving the health and experience of people with diabetes. It has resulted in better diabetes control, better awareness of diabetes in the medical community and increased detection of ‘hidden cases’ of diabetes.

“We are confident that we have a nationally recognised, high quality diabetes service in place in Sheffield with a a robust programme in place to target those likely to be at highest risk.”

An NHS East Riding of Yorkshire spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that during 2011/12 the number of NHS Health Checks carried out was low. This year, general practices in the East Riding have been offered the opportunity of agreeing contracts to deliver the checks, and we anticipate a considerable increase in the number carried out for local patients.

“Options to further increase uptake are also being considered as the responsibility for health checks transfers to the local authority from April 2013.”

Type 1 diabetes where the body cannot produce any insulin normally appears before the age of 40 and accounts for 10 per cent of the cases. The huge increase has been in Type 2 diabetes, which is linked with rising obesity rates, and usually appears in people aged over 40. A healthy diet and increased physical activity helps but medication and/or insulin is often needed.