The NHS has announced its plans to roll out an artificial pancreas as part of a world-first initiative for patients in England living with type 1 diabetes.
Over the next five years, tens of thousands of children and adults living with the condition are set to benefit from the Hybrid Closed Loop system.
Accounting for approximately 10% of diabetes cases in the UK, type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not produce insulin or makes very little insulin.
Since the beginning of April, local NHS systems have been identifying eligible people living with type 1 diabetes who would benefit from the artificial pancreas, which works to continually monitor patients’ blood glucose while automatically adjusting the amount of insulin given to them through a pump.
Not only does the device allow some people with type 1 diabetes to no longer need to inject themselves with insulin, it can also help to prevent life-threatening hyperglycaemic (too much sugar in the blood) and hypoglycaemia (too little blood sugar in the blood) attacks, which can lead to seizures, coma or death for this population of patients.
The rollout builds on a successful pilot of the Hybrid Closed Loop system by NHS England, which saw the management of type 1 diabetes in 835 adults and children improve and follows the National Institute of Health Care and Excellence’s (NICE) approval of the technology in December 2023.
NICE recommended that the device be rolled out to children and young people under the age of 18 years, pregnant women with type 1 diabetes, as well as adults with type 1 diabetes who have a haemoglobin A1C of 7.5% or higher.
Since its approval, NHS England has published a five-year implementation strategy to guide local systems to provide the technology for eligible patients and has provided local health systems with £2.5m to start identifying patients that will benefit.
Dr Clare Hambling, national clinical director for diabetes and obesity, the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists, said: “This transformative technology holds the power to redefine the lives of those with type 1 diabetes, promising a better quality of life as well as clinical outcomes.”