This came in recognition of the department’s “multi-professional approach and use of blended learning with some really innovative approaches,” as observed by the panel of judges. Having catered diabetes patient care, training, education, basic science, clinical and epidemiological research, the department has also advanced a nation-wide training programme for doctors, nurse educators and foot-care technicians since 2003, which in the following year, was developed into a distance education programme.

The department has undertaken initiatives to train healthcare professionals at national and international levels, and has launched an intense local training programme on foot care and footwear. Such efforts have proven to be prolific, with 736 trained doctors in secondary care of diabetes (from the distance education programme), and several more benefiting from its other courses on offer, such as the diabetes counselor training programme, extensive CMEs, higher specialty training programmes, diabetes fellowship programmes, and the publication of The Practical Manual of Diabetes, with as many as 60,000 copies in circulation.

It has been noted that the number of trained professionals qualified to handle the diabetes epidemic has grown tremendously by the agency of the department. This has earned the department the distinction of being the only medical team outside the United Kingdom to win in any of the categories of these awards this year. The award was presented at a glittering formal ceremony to Prof Nihal Thomas in at the town hall in Manchester, United Kingdom on the occasion the annual academic conference of the Royal College of Physicians.