EU member states urged to do more to tackle diabetes

EU governments have been accused of a “half-hearted” approach to tackling  potential causes of diabetes, such as obesity.

It follows the publication on Tuesday of a major report on the ‘customer-friendliness’ of diabetes care across Europe.

The so-called diabetes index revealed that overall care is best in Denmark and worst in Bulgaria.

Other top performers include the UK, France and the Netherlands although the Health Consumer Powerhouse (HCP) report says no country achieves their ‘true potential’ and all need varying degrees of reform to maximise performance.

The index allows patients to scrutinise and compare their own country with other member states on diabetes care by assessing issues such as patient’s rights and information, generosity, prevention, access and treatment outcomes.

The report praises Denmark for its “admirable” performance but says there is still room for improvement as is the case in the UK where, it says, obesity and low rates of physical activity “undermine” diabetes care available.
 
On Bulgaria, the report says “increased efforts on prevention should be the highest priority.”

Central and eastern European countries generally make up the bulk of those countries at the bottom of the diabetes ‘league table’ but Portugal, Cyprus and Greece also struggle to deliver adequate levels of care.

Johan Hjertqvist, president of HCP, said: “There is a clear need for greater focus on diabetes prevention - this would make the single biggest difference to reducing the impact of the disease.

“Even simple measures, such as lifestyle issues of reducing obesity, increasing levels of exercise and smoking cessation would make a difference.

"It is a strange contradiction to see well-funded healthcare systems like France, Germany, Italy and Spain taking a half-hearted approach to smoking cessation when the benefits are clear.

"Equally, the UK detracts from it’s own otherwise admirable efforts by not providing adequate screening of basics like cholesterol and blood sugar. These are not expensive measures, yet they could make a major difference to performance if properly implemented.”

In contrast, Hjertqvist highlighted the existence of beacons of potential, such as Lithuania, which demonstrated how to deliver a quality performance with relatively low levels of expenditure.

• Previous article
• Next article