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Diabetes drug prescriptions rises eight million since 2015, NHS report says

Nearly 60 million drugs were used to treat people with diabetes in England last year, increasing eight million since 2015-16, a report by the NHS revealed.

The latest data released by the NHS Business Service Authority (NHSBSA) showed that 57.9 million drugs were prescribed during 2020-21, costing the exchequer £1.19 billion. It accounted for 12.5 per cent of the total spend on all prescription items.


The data showed a steep increase from 2015-16, where 49.7 million diabetes items were prescribed for a cost of £958 million, accounting for 10.4 per cent of the total spend.

The study entitled ‘Prescribing for diabetes England 2015-2016 to 2020-2021’, also found that there were over 3.05 million identified patients, who were prescribed diabetes drugs, against 3 million patients in 2019-20, and 2.70 million in 2015-16.

It further revealed that most people who were prescribed drugs for diabetes last year lived in deprived areas.

The most common age group among the patients in 2020-21 was 70 to 74, higher than 65 to 69 registered in 2015-16.

Besides, cost of antidiabetic drugs increased by 62 per cent from £423m in 2015-16 to £686m last year.

In 2020-21, 43.1 million antidiabetic drug items were prescribed.

The most deprived areas in England have the highest number of identified patients being prescribed drugs used in treating diabetes in 2020-21.