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GP practices should be ‘forced to submit data for diabetes audit’

GP practices should be forced to take part in the National Diabetes Audit to help make sure the NHS hits targets on diabetes care, a group of influential MPs has said.

The Public Accounts Committee said standards of diabetes care were still not good enough in some areas, citing the fall in practices participating in the National Diabetes Audit – down from 81% of practices in 2011/12 to 71% in 2012/13.

This was ’undermining one of the most comprehensive clinical audits in the world’, the MPs said. 

The committee recommended that NHS England should ’make it mandatory for GP practices to submit data for the National Diabetes Audit’.

In its latest review of progress on diabetes management, the committee added that there was ‘unacceptable’ variation in the take-up of diabetes education programmes and delivery of recommended care processes.

According to evidence heard by the committee, some of this was ‘down to how GP practices use their IT systems, with some practices not using the full functionality of these systems’. 

The MPs called for NHS England to ‘develop a strategy for sharing best practice, including on using GP IT systems effectively to support the delivery of diabetes care’.

The committee also called on NHS England and Public Health England to ‘ramp up’ their NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, which it said was moving too slowly, and set out wider public health strategies on preventing diabetes, such as marketing campaigns.


          

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