OBJECTIVES: To correlate spending on diabetes drug prescriptions in English general practices with occurrence of risks associated with type 2 diabetes.  METHODS: Data from the HSCIC showing number of prescriptions, by drug, issued in English general practices in 2014 and the associated net ingredient cost (NIC) were analysed using a proprietary in-house software. The total number of patients per CCG with diagnosed diabetes, stroke and ischemia, peripheral atrial disease, hypertension, heart failure, coronary heart disease and atrial fibrillation between April 2013 and March 2014 were identified through the HSCIC’s QOF data. The median age in a CCG was identified using ONS 2012 data. Spearman’s correlations and partial correlations were performed using SPSS v22.0. ‘Spend’ was defined as total NIC. RESULTS: As expected, spending on prescriptions for diabetes drugs correlated almost perfectly with the number of diabetes patients (r=0.97***). All the included risks associated with diabetes, bar age, correlated significantly with spending on diabetes prescriptions. The highest correlation was with the number of patients with obesity (r=0.92***). The most expensive type of diabetes drugs were insulins. The correlations between spend on insulin prescriptions and number of patients with each individual diabetes risk was always higher than the correlations between spend on prescriptions for all diabetes drugs and number of patients with each individual associated risk. The same was true when correlating the total number of prescriptions with occurrence of diabetes associated risks. Interestingly, both of these trends remained true when controlling for number of patients diagnosed with diabetes using partial correlations. CONCLUSIONS: As the occurrence of risks associated with diabetes increase, the spend on diabetes prescriptions is likely to increase. This is not only because more prescriptions are issued but also because the likelihood of insulins, the most expensive type of diabetes drugs, being prescribed increases.