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Alliance plans 'wholesale changes' to diabetes care

Nurses among those at international summit that emphasises improving patient self-management

Leading figures in the study of type 2 diabetes, including nurses, have pooled their expertise to improve patient care.

An international alliance plans to make ‘wholesale changes’ to the way people with diabetes manage their condition.

Nurses, doctors, researchers and healthcare managers from the UK, United States, Australia, Denmark, Holland, Ireland and Qatar held a summit at the Leicester Diabetes Centre.

They agreed to work together with the aim of making self-management programmes more accessible.

Organiser Prof Heather Daly said: 'In England and Wales only 14% of healthcare professionals offer structured diabetes education classes, and only 10% of people with diabetes have attended a structured education programme.'

Diabetes education pioneer Prof Bob Anderson gave a keynote speech on self-management through the ages, while MP Keith Vaz, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for diabetes, said: 'We would like to hear more about what Leicester is doing, and the meetings held in the future'