Consultant endocrinologist Dr Alex Bickerton and diabetes nurses Ruth Hammond and Emily Harrod took part in the National Diabetes Audit (NDA) Quality Improvement Collaborative (QIC) from Yeovil Hospital, while consultant endocrinologist Dr Isy Douek represented the diabetes service at Musgrove Park Hospital.

Harrod said: ‘The NDA QIC initiative made a huge difference in helping us to refine our service, ensuring that we can offer advanced technology to patients in a structured and equitable manner.'

The initiative aimed to address the significant gaps in the use of insulin pumps among individuals with type 1 diabetes.

Around 90,000 people in England and Wales with blood glucose levels greater than 69 mmol/mol are not using insulin pumps, highlighting the inequalities based on the person's location, gender, age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Harrod added: ‘To tackle this issue, specialist teams set up a monthly meeting to discuss and implement quality improvement strategies.

‘Our primary objective at Yeovil Hospital was to enhance data collection, so we could identify patients eligible for insulin pump therapy, as well as to establish a streamlined pathway for their treatment.'

The team at Musgrove Park Hospital, meanwhile, appointed a diabetes support worker to help with admin and technical support.

Dr Douek said this had ‘made a huge difference to both patients and the team, and we were also able to review our pump pathway and implement a hybrid closed loop pathway'.

Praising the work by trust colleagues, Michael Sykes, national diabetes audit quality improvement lead, said: ‘We highly commend your team for collaborating, sharing and supporting people living with diabetes.'