Joint working between pharma, the NHS and patient organisations featured among the award winners at QiC Diabetes 2012 – an annual programme to recognise and share good practice in diabetes care within the UK.
A partnership between diabetes charity JDRF and Lilly UK to implement a programme in schools to provide information about type 1 diabetes was highly commended in the category best cross-organisational partnership of the year.
Another project from Lilly that involved partnering with Royal Surrey Country Hospital NHS Trust to better educate healthcare professionals working in hospitals about what they need to look out for in patients with diabetes was commended in the category best in-patient care initiative.
Collaboration was key in entries recognised across the programme’s 14 categories, each representing a different key area of care in diabetes, with successful care initiatives, partnerships and clinical service redesigns from hospitals, the community and the pharmaceutical industry all singled out for recognition.
These included efforts in Derby to bring its primary and secondary diabetes care under a not-for-profit organisation called First Diabetes, holding a single budget and single clinical governance structure, which won both best cross-organisational partnership of the year and best primary and/or community initiative of the year.
In South East Hampshire, a new model was developed between Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust that integrated acute and community diabetes care. This entry was recognised as the winner in best network care initiative.
The awards ceremony was held at Sanofi’s headquarters in Guildford on Thursday October 18. The programme is in its second year, and has been developed by PMGroup with support from NHS Diabetes, Diabetes UK, Sanofi and the Young Diabetologists Forum.
Anna Morton, director of national improvement body NHS Diabetes, said: “The awards have provided a unique platform to showcase good practice and innovation from across the country. We are all working under increased pressure and uncertainty and the examples highlighted have shown how despite adversity, high-quality diabetes can still be achieved.”
Caroline Horwood, diabetes division director at Sanofi, commented: “As a leading diabetes care company we’re delighted to be supporters of QiC Diabetes for the second year. We witnessed some inspirational work last year, and it is heartening to see that 2012 brings some new award categories and a 50 per cent increase in the number of entries. We anticipate seeing more great innovation making a difference to people with diabetes, which aligns completely to our own company ethos.”
Quality in Care is a series of programmes aimed at recognising quality and productivity in line with the Department of Health agenda around QIPP.
The vision for QiC is to highlight good ideas, whether from an individual, a team within an organisation or a collaborative effort between organisations, recognise the best of them and share them as widely as possible across the NHS.