10th June 2025

Cambridge Research Nurse, Andrea Lake, the first nurse in the East of England to receive NIHR PhD research funding, received the prestigious ‘Research Project of the Year’ award at the Diabetes Nursing Awards in London over the weekend. 

Andrea, a diabetes specialist nurse and PhD student, won the national award in recognition of her research, which could see people with diabetes spending less time in hospital.

Time in hospital can be disruptive, but for people with diabetes it can be especially challenging. Changes to routine and the ways the body responds to illness make it harder to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, which for people with diabetes can lead to health complications and slow down recovery.

When admitted to hospital, most people with diabetes are only referred to a diabetes specialist nurse if they start experiencing diabetes-related complications, such as low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). These complications are not only undesirable for patients but can mean more time in hospital.

At Addenbrooke’s,/ Cambridge 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.

As part of her PhD studies, over the last five years, Andrea has led several small-scale studies, sponsored by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), to explore this approach. In the studies, people with diabetes get specialist tailored advice on managing their diabetes when they are first admitted to hospital, helping them to avoid complications.

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.

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.

These studies are too small to be conclusive, 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.

Important, 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 now exploring opportunities to run these larger-scale trials across multiple hospitals.

While proactive reviews do increased workload for the diabetes specialist nurses over the course of the study. Andrea believes that this cost could be worthwhile across the NHS if it allows more patients to be discharged sooner and reduces the need to provide emergency support for patients struggling to control their diabetes.

Andrea was the first nurse in the East of England to receive an 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.

To find out more about NIHR Career Development Funding Programmes 

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.”

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.”