Diabetes prescriptions given to primary care patients in England topped 40 million for the first time last year, following a 50 per cent increase in six years.
Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) figures show the net cost of diabetes drugs also rose by just under 50 per cent in the same period. The increase in prescribing and drug costs across all medicines increased by 33 and 11 per cent respectively.
According to the Prescribing for Diabetes in England: 2005/06 to 2011/12 report, diabetes drugs are taking up a bigger share of both total drugs dispensed and the total net cost to the NHS each year.
In 2011/12, diabetes drugs accounted for 4.2 per cent of all items dispensed and 8.9 per cent of the total net ingredient cost bill, compared to 3.7 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively in 2005/06.
While the overall cost of all drugs to the NHS fell last year by just over one per cent, the diabetes drugs bill increased by nearly 5 per cent. The report said the figures painted 'a concerning picture of the increasing impact of this condition'.
Chief executive of Diabetes UK Barbara Young (pictured) said the main reason for the increases was the rising number of people with type 2 diabetes. Around 2.5 million people in England have been diagnosed with diabetes and this number is expected to reach 4.2 million by 2025; 90 per cent of cases are type 2 diabetes. Causes are multi-factorial but being obese is a significant risk factor.
'We face the real possibility of diabetes bankrupting the NHS within a generation,' Baroness Young said. 'This is why we need to grasp the nettle on preventing type 2 diabetes. We need a government-funded awareness campaign on the risk factors and symptoms of type 2 diabetes and we need to get much better at identifying people at high risk.'
She added that the NHS Health Check, which all patients between age 40 and 74 should receive, had the potential to do this but had so far been 'poorly implemented'.
'It is only by improving this that we can end the steep rise in the number of people with diabetes and begin to bring the spiralling financial cost of the condition under control.'