An Oxfordshire NHS diabetes team has scooped a Health Service Journal (HSJ) Value Award in the ‘Diabetes Care Initiative of the Year’ category. The announcement was made at the HSJ awards ceremony earlier this month (2 September 2021).

 The winning team includes senior clinicians, managers and analysts from:

• Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group
• Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS FT 
• Oxford Health NHS FT 
• South Central and West Commissioning Support Unit 
• People living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, who helped to guide the project.

The team created a diabetes data dashboard to allow GPs and clinicians to improve the care and support for people living with diabetes helping them manage their condition more effectively.

This dashboard is updated monthly providing relevant information around diabetes care and health outcomes for people living with the condition in Oxfordshire. It presents data at county, Primary Care Network (PCN) and GP practice level, so providing a regular insight into Oxfordshire diabetes population health.

The dashboard has been used in regular visits in GP practices and PCNs by the diabetes specialist team, including consultants, diabetes specialist nurses and dietitians to develop supportive multi-disciplinary working and joined-up care across primary, community and secondary care, which improves outcomes for people with diabetes.

Diane Hedges, Deputy Chief Executive at Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “This is fantastic news and demonstrates how the NHS in Oxfordshire is committed to improving treatment and health outcomes for patients. The hard-working team has developed a ground-breaking initiative which has extended, enriched and saved lives and they fully deserve this recognition.”

Dr Amar Latif, Clinical Lead for Long Term Conditions at Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said: "We are absolutely delighted to have won this award. This is a testament to the dedication, commitment and hard work that has been undertaken by GP practices and specialist diabetes teams across Oxfordshire.

"I feel proud to be working with colleagues who put the care of their patients at the heart of everything they do. This award is a recognition of the great care that people with diabetes receive in Oxfordshire, even during the height of the pandemic. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed towards this."

Garry Tan, Consultant and Clinical Lead for Diabetes at OUH, said: “We are so pleased to have won this award. It really does mean a huge amount to everyone involved to have been formally recognised in this way, particularly against the backdrop of recent difficulties we’ve faced. However, we are confident that the impact of this will help to create a positive and enduring legacy for the 33,000 people living with diabetes in Oxfordshire.”

Rustam Rea, Consultant in Diabetes at OUH, said: “Working together across a wide population has enabled us to achieve far more than we could have done by ourselves. We are thrilled that this collaborative working has received this recognition by the HSJ Value Awards.”

Jane Salmon and Jane Maskell, Clinical Leads for Community Diabetes Service at Oxford Health, said: “We are delighted to have been recognised in these national awards with our partners OUH, GPs and OCCG. I am very proud that this collaboration has worked well and we have been able to make a difference for people with diabetes in Oxfordshire. Together we have established great communication links and support networks for all involved. It is not only the data that demonstrates the improvements but also the voices of people with diabetes in the county, who feel that their diabetes care and support has been enriched.”

Emily Gillott, Intelligence Manager for the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire (BOB) Embedded Analytics team at SCW Commissioning Support Unit, said:  “We are proud to have been part of this project and are delighted it has won the award. Collaborating with healthcare professionals across Oxfordshire has been a positive experience and the result shows how working together can benefit the population and improve patient outcomes.”

Tony O'Malley, a person with diabetes, said: "It was a real privilege to be a member of the team that initiated, developed, and implemented this exciting project. As an Oxfordshire patient representative on the project, I found the team to be very open and welcoming, but most importantly they were all completely authentic and genuinely interested in the patient’s viewpoint."

Dave West, HSJ deputy editor, commented: “Congratulations to the team on winning at this year’s HSJ Value Awards. Following on from what has been an extremely challenging time across the entire healthcare industry, it has once again been a real honour to celebrate projects of such a high standard.”

 The Dashboard in more detail:

• The implementation of the Dashboard and multi-disciplinary working has played a significant role in improving the care of people with diabetes within Oxfordshire, which is measured in the National Diabetes Audit (NDA).

• People with diabetes should have an annual check-up, which includes urine and blood tests, as well as an examination of their feet. This has improved In Oxfordshire between 2016 to 2020: the percentage of people with Type 2 diabetes having all their annual checks increased from 51.6% to 76.7% (nationally the figure changed from 53.9% to 54.3%); for people with Type 1 diabetes, this increased from 29.3% to 57% (nationally, from 37.3% to 40.8%).

Diabetes in more detail:

• Every year, in the UK, diabetes causes
• 27,000 heart attacks and
• nearly 100,000 cases of heart failure.
• 37,600 strokes
• 9600 leg, toe or foot amputations (that’s 185 every week)
• worsening of vision in 1700 people.
• The NHS spends at least £10 billion a year on diabetes (about 10% of its annual budget).
• In 2019/20, there were 57.7 million items prescribed for people with diabetes (up from 35.5 million 10 years earlier).
• People with diabetes are twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as people without diabetes.
• There are 33 700 people with diabetes in Oxfordshire (that’s about 4.2% of the population).
• It’s estimated that there are a further 10 000 people with diabetes in Oxfordshire who don’t know that they have diabetes (because they’ve not been tested).