PRUH Diabetes service receives national accreditation

20 May 2025 - Congratulations to the Inpatient Diabetes service at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) on receiving a Diabetes Care Accreditation Programme (DCAP) from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP).

By receiving the accreditation, the Inpatient Diabetes service at the PRUH becomes the second DCAP accredited service in the UK.

The team has received the level 1 accreditation and the RCP will return to the PRUH next year with a view to award the service with a level 2 accreditation, which lasts for five years.

The accreditation assessors were particularly impressed with how the service has developed from scratch in the last two years.

In 2024, the team developed the Reducing Admissions in Diabetes (RAID) service, which aims to reduce hospital admissions in diabetes patients presenting to the Emergency Department with high blood glucose levels.

The team has also introduced a discharge clinic (DWARD), which aims to see diabetes patients within a week of discharge from hospital to reduce length of stays whilst maintaining patient safety.

The Inpatient Diabetes service at the PRUH is one of the first services in south east London to have a formalised pre-operative pathway (PODOC) which helps optimise diabetes for patients on surgery waiting lists which leads to reduced cancellations and improved outcomes. It has also set-up a service supporting cancer patients (GOST) who require urgent scans that can be delayed due to abnormal blood glucose levels or chemotherapy treatment that can cause high blood glucose levels and risk admission.

Dr Adrian Li, Clinical Lead for Diabetes at the PRUH, said: “Everyone in the team here at the PRUH is immensely proud of this accreditation. To be the second nationally accredited inpatient diabetes service in the UK is a fantastic achievement. The PRUH Diabetes team have worked incredibly hard to forge pathways to support diabetes inpatients in every corner of the hospital.

“The accreditation ensures that the correct pathways, procedures and processes are in place to reduce hospital admissions and that the team provides excellent standard of care. I want to say well done and congratulations to everyone in the team for their dedication and diligence.”

Dr Deepak Rao, Clinical Director of the Specialty Medicine Care Group at the PRUH, added: “This is a fantastic achievement by the diabetes team at the PRUH. Everyone in the Specialty Medicine Care Group at the PRUH thanks the team for their dedication and efforts for providing the best possible care for our diabetes patients and we congratulate them on the accreditation.”

The DCAP accreditation was launched in 2023 and is an RCP programme to ensure that all inpatient diabetes services across the UK are meeting excellent standards of care. The Inpatient Diabetes service at our Denmark Hill site is currently undergoing the assessment for accreditation.