Specialist nurse wins national award for innovative diabetes care research
By: Communications
Andrea Lake, a diabetes specialist nurse and University of East Anglia PhD student at Addenbrooke’s Hospital has won a national award in recognition of her research, which could shorten hospital stays for people with diabetes.
Time in hospital can make it harder for people with diabetes to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, which can lead to health complications and slow down recovery.
Hospital inpatients with diabetes are often only referred to diabetes specialist nurses if they start experiencing diabetes-related complications, such as low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). These complications are not only undesirable for patients but can extend their hospital stays.
At Addenbrooke’s, Andrea has been trialling a different approach. She is investigating whether a proactive review for all people with diabetes when they are admitted to hospital, could improve diabetes management, improving outcomes and experiences for patients.
Over the last five years, Andrea has led several small-scale studies as part of her PhD studies. Sponsored by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), these studies explore the benefits of offering people with diabetes specialist tailored advice to help managing their diabetes when they are first admitted to hospital.
Andrea was the first nurse in the East of England to receive a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) doctoral fellowship, which has supported her to undertake this research as part of her PhD studies. Her PhD is supervised from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Andrea aims to complete her current studies and gain her PhD doctorate in 2026 but hopes to continue her research beyond this.
The most recent study ran across eight wards at Addenbrooke’s covering a range of medical specialisms. It included 260 people with diabetes that were admitted for treatments unrelated to their diabetes. Half of the participants received standard care and half were given specialist advice when they were admitted.
The initial results have been promising. Andrea has shown that proactive reviews can be achieved within busy NHS hospitals and that they are viewed positively by NHS staff.
These studies are too small to show conclusive patient benefits, but they suggest that proactive reviews could help more patients to control their diabetes in hospital, improve their experience in hospital and, on average, allow them to leave hospital sooner.
Importantly, the studies provide enough evidence to justify larger studies to thoroughly assess the potential benefits of delivering this new approach to diabetes care within the NHS. Andrea is hoping to setup larger trials across multiple hospitals.
In the early studies, proactive reviews did increase workload for diabetes specialist nurses. However, Andrea believes that this must be offset against the benefits of more patients being discharged sooner and reducing demand for emergency support when patients experience diabetes-related complications.
Andrea’s work so far was celebrated at the Diabetes Nursing Awards held in London, where she took home the award for Research Project of the Year. The award was presented by Dr Sarah Jarvis MBE, well-known throughout the UK as the BBC One Show’s on-screen GP.
During her research, Andrea has worked closely with both clinical and support staff colleagues. In addition to the above, she would like to thank Shannon Savine, Caroline Taylor, Katy Davenport and all the diabetes outreach team, who played key roles in the success of this project.
Andrea said: “I am grateful to receive this award in recognition of my research, and thankful to everyone that has supported my work. Living with diabetes while in hospital is a significant challenge for patients. I hope that my work will be able to make a difference and help more people to recover and get back to their regular lives sooner.”
Judges praised the project for its robust design, real-world relevance and potential to inform national improvements in inpatient diabetes care.
Event organiser Emily Mayhew said: "Andrea’s work highlights the importance of research in driving progress in diabetes care.
“Her proactive model has the potential to change the way inpatient diabetes services are delivered across the NHS – a truly outstanding contribution."
Lorraine Szeremeta, Chief Nurse at CUH, said: “Congratulations to Andrea on this award. I am proud that at CUH we are able to provide many opportunities for nurses to gain research skills, leading to improvements in patient care & experience. Andrea’s work could help more patients to leave hospital sooner, and I look forward to seeing her research progress.”
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