17th November 2015

Diabetes Team are awarded £100,000 at NHS Innovation Challenge Prizes Award Ceremony

Award Ceremony, Manchester

Representatives from the Diabetes Team at George Eliot Hospital & Apnee Sehat were awarded £100,000 in the NHS Innovation Challenge Prize. The award will be used to extend services for people with Type 2 Diabetes or future patients into the wider community.

In total thirteen enterprising projects to improve patient care scooped a share of £650,000 in the prestigious award ceremony attended by the Secretary of State for Health in Manchester.

Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s Medical Director presented the award of £100,000 to Diabetes Consultant, Dr Saravanan and Multi lingual Co-worker, Parveen Deen from the George Eliot Hospital which was the largest single prize for any of the projects.

George Eliot Hospital and Apnee Sehat were awarded this fantastic prize for their South Asian Specialist Intervention (SASI) pilot caring for those at risk of Type 2 Diabetes. Apnee Sehat is a local social enterprise (George Eliot Hospital Diabetes Team is part of this enterprise) specialising in tailoring programmes to South Asian lifestyle.

Working with local GP surgeries and the local community, culturally trained diabetes specialists worked with those at risk of Type 2 Diabetes or who have diabetes with poorly controlled symptoms, through telephone consultations and outpatient clinics. Cost savings were demonstrated to both the George Eliot, improved patient outcomes for diabetes patients and prevented many individuals of South Asian descent from requiring diabetes care in the first place.

The George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust Diabetes Team & Apnee Sehat were one of the 340 applicants shortlisted for the NHS England awards and had to present their ideas in a Dragon’s Den type pitch to a group of experts.

Applicants were asked to apply in one of seven areas: two diabetes challenges, infection control challenge, digital patient and clinician engagement challenge, use of technology challenges, rehabilitation challenge and acorn challenges.

Funding has been provided by Janssen, 3M and NHS England, with in kind development and mentoring support provided to the programme and winners from Accenture, Health Fabric, Allied Health Professionals Federation and the HSJ.

The group of challenge specific experts was drawn from NHS England, partner companies and other organisations.

The next steps for the project are to extend the service to other BME communities and to a larger population. Replicating the model through a bank of local providers in other areas and the potential for SASI practitioners to train others in high South Asian population areas. The team are also planning an event to celebrate the success and promote the project.

Diabetes Consultant, Dr Saravanan said, “We are absolutely delighted for the recognition for the team who have worked tirelessly to bring our work into the community”.

“Our next ambition is make our unit a centre of excellence for integrated diabetes care.

“We would also like to remind people to eat healthily, exercise and stop smoking to help combat Diabetes and Cardiovascular related illnesses as early as possible.

Find out more here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/ventures/news/?newsItem=094d43454d776d68014d94ab98427276 (opens in a new window)