Portugal

In Portugal, diabetes care provided by the National Health System is free of charge and all types of insulin are available for all people living with diabetes (PwD). Other medicines are partially reimbursed, and some devices are only available for people living with type 1 diabetes.

In the last 20 years, the country has made great efforts to create an integrated care model for diabetes management and answer the needs of PwD in an interdisciplinary and complementary way.

One of the main challenges faced by the country is the prevention of type 2 diabetes. To address this, the National Health Directorate is implementing healthy living initiatives and a mix of national and international guidelines for the prevention of diabetes. Diabetes nurses play an important role in the prevention and management. However, they are not recognised as specialist diabetes nurses and cannot prescribe diabetes medicines.