Mike Penning has tabled a motion in the House of Commons condemning the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) recommendation that new inhaled insulin treatment for diabetes patients should not be available on the NHS.

Diabetes is a major and growing health problem and affects 2 million people in the UK. The decision by NICE to recommend that this new inhaled insulin treatment not be made available on the NHS means that UK patients will have to either pay themselves or continue with daily multiple injections – a routine that can be difficult to control and can result in problems managing the disease. Complications arising from the poor management of diabetes cost the NHS £5 billion every year.

The new inhaled insulin treatment has been granted a licence based on robust scientific and medical evidence by both the United States’ Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Evaluation Agency and it is one of the most significant medical breakthroughs in diabetes treatment since the discovery of insulin in the 1920s.

“I cannot understand the reasoning behind this”, said Mike Penning. “British diabetes sufferers have seen the possibility of an end to daily injections come within their grasp, only to be taken away….and these people call themselves ‘NICE’!”