Individuals with diabetes in England and Wales 2022/23, by type

As of 2021, the prevalence of diabetics in the UK totaled 8.2 percent. Type 2 diabetes, highly related to unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as the overconsumption of sugar and a lack of exercise, as well as aging, affects more individuals than type 1 diabetes. Between 2022 and 2023, over 3.4 million people in England were registered with type 2 diabetes, while almost 270 thousand had type 1.

Type 1 diabetes

Between 2022 and 2023, most people registered with type 1 diabetes in England were aged 40 years and younger, with 44.9 percent. In 2021, the UK was the European country with the second-highest number of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes after Germany, with over 31,600 cases.

Treatment

The NHS in the UK provides nine care processes annually to people with diabetes. Blood pressure checks, cholesterol monitoring, and foot surveillance are among those. Figures show that almost half of individuals in England with type 2 diabetes received all nine care processes between 2022 and 2023. This figure totaled 37 percent in the case of patients with type 1 diabetes. The same trend could be observed in Wales in 2021/22, where the share of type 2 diabetics receiving all care processes was double the type 1 patients.