This Lords Library briefing provides information on the prevalence of diabetes in the UK and sets out some of the policies and actions being implemented to help tackle the issue.
Diabetes: UK Prevalence and Policy Developments (95 KB , PDF)
Diabetes UK published a report suggesting there were around 4 million people living with diabetes in the UK. Following this, the organisation’s chief executive, Chris Askew, stated “there is no time to waste in getting serious about providing better care and diabetes education”. The Department of Health and NHS England have estimated that, in England alone, around 3.2 million people had diabetes in 2013–14 (6.2 percent of the adult population), of whom around 400,000 (1.2 percent of the adult population) were undiagnosed. Meanwhile, the APHO Diabetes Prevalence Model predicts that by 2025 a total of 4.8 million adults will be living with diabetes across England, Wales and Scotland. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee recently published a report expressing a number of concerns over the treatment and prevention of diabetes in the UK, and the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, has identified diabetes as a health care priority.
Diabetes: UK Prevalence and Policy Developments (95 KB , PDF)
In 2024, the House of Lords established a committee to consider the prevention and consequences of preterm birth in England. This briefing provides a summary of the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee findings, reactions to its report, and the government’s response, ahead of a debate in the House of Lords on 6 June 2025.
The House of Lords is due to discuss NHS staff access to single-sex spaces on 1 May 2025. Following a recent Supreme Court judgment about the meaning of the term ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010, the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued an interim update on 25 April 2025 about the implications of this for workplaces and services provided to the public.
In England, the NHS provides prosthetics where suitable for people who have had a limb amputation. However, concerns have been raised about how quickly individuals can access multifunctional limbs. Also, while high-performance sports prosthetics are available for children, some campaigners are calling for adults to be able to access them from the NHS.
