Discontinuation of insulin detemir - New measures for primary and secondary care

We’ve launched new measures to track the remaining use of insulin detemir in primary and secondary care. They are already live - have a look at primary care and secondary care for your organisation now!

What is insulin detemir used for? 

Insulin detemir is a type of long-acting (basal) insulin, used in the treatment of diabetes.

Why build this measure now?

Novo Nordisk are discontinuing all formulations of Levemir®. Levemir is the only insulin detemir product available in the UK, and supplies are due to be exhausted by December 2026. As a consequence of this patients need to be switched to an alternative basal insulin before that date.

The Primary Care Diabetes & Obesity Society (PCDOS) and Association of British Clinical Diabetologists (ABCD) have written guidance to support clinicians in selecting and safely initiating alternative basal insulins. The guidance recommends that local teams diversify prescribing across the available options to reduce supply risks. Given the significant regional variation in prescribing, it also advises using data to support planning.

This measure helps organisations understand their current level of insulin detemir use and to monitor progress to ensure patients are appropriately switched prior to December 2026.

Primary care measure

On OpenPrescribing for primary care we show the number of items for insulin detemir cartridges/pre-filled devices per 1000 registered patients.

Using OpenPrescribing you can ‘Breakdown the score into individual presentations’, to see which type of device is being prescribed. The image below shows a breakdown by individual presentation for NHS Devon.

Secondary care measure

Because individual organisations don’t have a defined list of registered patients in OpenPrescribing Hospitals, the measure shows the raw quantity of insulin detemir prefilled-devices and cartridges issued. You can look at secondary care usage of insulin detemir broken down by individual hospital trust, ICB, NHS region and nationally.

Conducting your own analyses

You can also use the analyse pages on OpenPrescribing and OpenPrescribing Hospitals to explore your own data. For example you might want to monitor how prescribing patterns of the recommended alternative basal insulins are changing across your organisation.

This example analysis on OpenPrescribing shows prescribing rates of Lantus across different NHS regions.

This analysis on OpenPrescribing Hospitals shows the total issuing of insulin glargine, insulin degludec and human insulin isophane cartridges and pre-filled pens across all NHS trusts in England (excludes vials and insulin degludec 100units/ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled disposable devices as per the PCDOS and ABCD guidance).

Get in touch

As a small team of clinicians, academics, and software engineers, we are able to build and launch dashboards quickly by working in an agile manner, openly describing our methods and code. If you have any suggestions for further developments of our measures on OpenPrescribing or OpenPrescribing Hospitals please get in touch at bennett@phc.ox.ac.uk.