Hansard

I welcome the opportunity to take part in this evening's debate on the provision of insulin pumps and congratulate David Stewart on bringing the issue to the Parliament. As other members have said, the subject is important, as it affects not just the treatment of type 1 diabetes but the whole NHS.

As Nanette Milne said, type 1 diabetes is an extremely serious issue in Scotland, given the high incidence of the condition here—the third highest in the world. We have about 197,000 sufferers of diabetes, more than 26,000, or 15 per cent, of whom have type 1 diabetes. That is an extremely large number.

As other members have said, the condition has a significant impact on young people, 35 per 100,000 of whom are affected by it. That has an impact not only on their lives, but on those of their families and on the support that the NHS provides through treatment of continuing illnesses.

It is clear that the use of insulin pumps can make the treatment of type 1 diabetes more effective, in that it can help people to manage their condition, make them more disciplined and contribute to an improved quality of life. The disparity between the use of insulin pumps in Scotland and in the rest of the UK and internationally is a concern. About 1 per cent of people in Scotland who have type 1 diabetes use insulin pumps, whereas the figure for the UK as a whole is 2 per cent. The disparity is even starker if we compare the situation in Scotland with that in other EU countries, where the figure ranges between 10 and 20 per cent. In the United States, too, the figure approaches the 20 per cent mark.

As other members have said, there are wide variances between the rates in different health board areas. There are more than 5,000 sufferers of type 1 diabetes in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board area, but only 31 of them use insulin pumps, which equates to a rate of 0.6 per cent. The rate in Lanarkshire, too, where only 21 out of more than 3,000 sufferers use insulin pumps, is only 0.6 per cent, which is well below the Scottish average and even further below the UK average. It is clear that urgent action is required. It is important that we raise the standard. I endorse Richard Simpson's suggestion that we should try to raise the level of insulin pump usage to 2.5 per cent across Scotland.

The provision of an insulin pump costs about £1,600 a year, whereas injections cost about £500 a year, but as Karen Whitefield and David Stewart said, the use of pumps can result in the NHS recouping £23,000 over two years because type 1 diabetes sufferers can go on to suffer from heart disease, stroke, kidney problems and blindness, which has an impact throughout the service. The use of insulin pumps to tackle type 1 diabetes has two main advantages: it improves people's health and it reduces the long-term strain on the NHS.

I congratulate David Stewart on raising this issue. He has helped to raise its profile, which I hope will help diabetes sufferers and have long-term benefits for the nation's health.