Diabetes healthcare teams invited to apply for NHS care funding

Diabetes healthcare teams are being invited to apply for NHS funding to improve treatment and management of the condition.
NHS England has opened an application process so healthcare professionals involved in diabetes care can request money to improve services.
NHS England said the funding will “kick-start, at scale, revolutions for diabetes treatment and prevention”.
The transformation fund will also support the Five Year Forward View which was created to ensure better health and patient care, while also improving the efficiency of the health service.
Applicants can bid for funding within four key priorities: increasing structured education attendance; reducing amputations and hospital admissions; reducing the length a patient stays in hospital; and improving the NICE recommended treatment targets.
The money will also go towards creating or developing diabetes specialist nursing services in hospital and expanding foot care teams.
Applications will be reviewed by regional and national NHS England teams, clinical networks, clinicians and people using the services.
Proposals must be submitted by Wednesday 18 January, 2017 and sites will be notified of the outcome by March 2017.
It was announced in September that around £40m would be made available to support a wider programme of investment into helping those with diabetes.
The plans were unveiled in the 2017-2019 NHS Operational Planning and Contracting document.
Figures released earlier this year by Public Health England suggested that there are 3.8 million adults in England with diabetes with nearly a million of those who do not know they have the condition.
By 2035 it has been estimated that diabetes prevalence in the UK is expected to rise to 4.9 million.