King’s Health Partners Diabetes, Endocrinology & Obesity (KHP DEO) Clinical Academic Partnership brings together clinical, operational and academic teams from across Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), King’s College Hospital NHS FT (KCH), South London and Maudsley NHS FT (SLaM) and King’s College London (KCL), working closely with people with lived experience and colleagues from across the South East London Integrated Care System (SEL ICS). We work together to improve the health, wellbeing and outcomes of people living with diabetes, endocrine disorders & obesity for our local population and beyond.
In the UK, people from Black African and Black Caribbean backgrounds are two to four times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, often at a younger age than people of White European backgrounds.
KHP Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity are partnering with Diabetes Africa for the upcoming Overcoming Diabetes Inequalities Forum on 23rd November 2023. The event enables health and social care professionals, decision-makers, and researchers to exchange solutions to overcome diabetes inequalities in UK Black, African, and Caribbean communities.
Attendees will join a hive of passionate and remarkable professionals working to reduce inequalities and improve diabetes care across the country. There will be enlightening talks with a big focus on ‘how to’ and ‘what works’, ensuring attendees have concrete suggestions to take back home, as well as meaningful new partnerships.
Want to know more? Bernadette Adeyileka-Tracz, Executive Director for Diabetes Africa, recently wrote a blog post for KHP News. You can read the post in full here.
Bernadette Adeyileka-Tracz,
Executive Director,
Diabetes Africa
Dr Stanford is one of the leading international experts on the steering group of The Lancet Commission on Diagnostic Criteria of Clinical Obesity – which aims to define criteria that discriminate between the condition of obesity (a risk factor for other diseases) and clinical obesity - intended as a disease state.
This Commission is organised as a partnership between the medical journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology and King’s Health Partners Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity Clinical Academic Partnership (KHP DEO). It is chaired by Prof Francesco Rubino - Chair of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, and Honorary Consultant at King's College Hospital NHS FT.
The Commission is finalising chapters ahead of submitting for publication. The report, when published, will aim to inform clinical decision-making, insurance coverage of evidence-based treatments, and more effective public health interventions to tackle the obesity epidemic, globally.
Obesity is both a result, and cause of, health inequalities. Those who are at greater risk of being overweight or developing obesity include people from lower socio-economic groups, with severe mental illness, and/or with learning disabilities. The overall levels of childhood and adult obesity in South east London (SEL), remain significantly higher than the national average. To address this issue, a Healthy Weight Action Plan was developed with an overarching aim to 'stem the rise of obesity in children, young people and adults in SEL'.
The Healthy Weight Action Plan spans maternity, children and young people and adults and was co-developed across the SEL system, including input from public health, providers and SEL Integrated Care Board. It forms part of our overall system response to address prevention and inequalities through the Vital 5, which seeks to tackle 5 key areas that will make a big difference to our population’s health and equity by preventing the onset of ill-health (alcohol, hypertension, healthy weight, mental health and wellbeing, and tobacco dependency).
Key achievements to date include:
SEL-wide workshop on promoting healthy weight settings in health and care organisations. This workshop shared best practice, enabled networking among peers and encouraged attendees to develop plans that support workplaces in promoting health weight practices.
Completed a current state assessment on Tier 2 and Tier 3 weight management services for children and young people. Key findings from this assessment will be used to inform future business cases for the sustainability and expansion of these services.
Based on the learning from the Up!Up! Programme in Lewisham, public health leads are developing plans to implement Tier 2 weight management services that are culturally appropriate and tailored to the needs of their residents.
Dr Brian Cleal,
Leader of the Psychosocial Health and Diabetes Team at Steno Diabetes Center, Copenhagen
Dr Bryan Cleal and Dr Pil Lindgreen from the Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen (SDCC) visited King’s Health Partners in September. This was part of an ongoing collaboration between the Diabetes Psychology and Psychiatry Group (Prof Khalida Ismail, Dr Marietta Stadler) and the SDCC (Prof Ingrid Willaing-Tappeiner, Dr Bryan Cleal, Dr Pil Lindgreen) on clinical academic work in diabetes and mental health. Prof Ismail has been a visiting professor at SDCC since 2019 and both teams have been working closely together over the past years.
Over the course of this two-day visit, there were several events and workshops, including a presentation by Dr Lindgreen on her research around binge eating and type 2 diabetes, and a seminar on ‘qualitative research methods in diabetes’ by Dr Cleal. The two teams jointly hosted a workshop with a group of international experts around type 1 disordered eating (T1DE), including a discussion of phenotypes of T1DE in adults, derived from the STEADY project and the London T1DE service.
On the second day of the visit, the teams ran a focus group with service users from the T1DE and STEADY services to explore cultural differences in patterns of binge eating disorder between English and Danish populations.
KHP DEO are in the process of developing our clinical academic partnership Research Strategy, with the ambition of building the foundations towards becoming a Metabolic Centre of Excellence over the next five years.
As part of this process, we have identified the following research focus areas (see emerging research strategy framework below):
T1D
Disorders of insulin resistance
SMI and endocrinology/metabolic complications
Disorders of Endocrine Growth
The strategy will be co-created with our KHP partners and people with lived experience of diabetes, obesity and endocrine disorders. We are bringing together small groups of key clinical academics for workshops over October and November 2023 to identify:
What is currently working well and the opportunities for improvement and growth across the translational research pathway (including how we can capitalise on enablers such as digital and health data sciences)
What are the current workforce challenges, how can we address the gaps and improve career development for researchers
What the inward investment pipeline looks like now and going forward
How we can more meaningfully engage with patients and public, and other key stakeholders
These focus groups will then frame wider engagement across our clinical academic community and into our patient communities.
Automated Insulin Delivery in Women with Pregnancy Complicated by Type 1 Diabetes (AiDAPT trial).Tara T M Lee, Corinne Collett, Simon Bergford, Sara Hartnell, Eleanor M Scott, Robert S Lindsay, Katharine F Hunt, David R McCance, Katharine Barnard-Kelly, David Rankin, Julia Lawton, Rebecca M Reynolds, Emma Flanagan, Matthew Hammond, Lee Shepstone, Malgorzata E Wilinska, Judy Sibayan, Craig Kollman, Roy Beck, Roman Hovorka, Helen R Murphy; AiDAPT Collaborative Group; N Engl J Med. 2023 Oct 5. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2303911. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37796241.
Gastric band and Liraglutide Intervention in Diabetes Evolution (GLIDE) Study. A randomised placebo-controlled trial to test whether the addition of liraglutide following gastric band surgery reduces weight and improves glycaemic control in patients with T2D and obesity. Results: stopping liraglutide following surgery led to increased weight and HBA1c.
Effectiveness and cost of integrating a protocol with use of liraglutide into obesity services (STRIVE) study. An ongoing collaboration with 5 UK and Ireland obesity services and the University of Leicester clinical trials unit. The study is a real-world study of liraglutide in severe obesity, and aims to identify the groups of patients who best respond to the medication. The results will provide clinical and cost-effectiveness data to inform future NICE appraisals
Service Evaluation of Liraglutide 3.0mg in Patients with Obesity and Prediabetes. A service evaluation of the tier 3 and 4 obesity pharmacotherapy programme at Guys Hospital has shown that liraglutide reduces weight and HbA1c when used in combination with lifestyle intervention. The evaluation also highlights that those of Black African and Caribbean ethnicity potentially experience less body weight reduction and are less likely to persist with liraglutide at 4 months.
Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (ESG) pilot
In 2022, King’s College Hospital (KCH) became the first NHS hospital to offer ESG – a new, non-surgical weight-loss treatment which is less invasive than bariatric surgery and has significantly shorter waiting times. This pilot has achieved promising real-world results which matched those from a tightly-regulated trial in the US. Once approved by NICE, KCH aims to treat 40 patients per year with this method, making KCH a hub for new technologies in the endoscopic space. Coverage of the treatment was recently included in the Daily Mail.
KCH International fellowship programme
King’s Metabolic and Diabetes Centre has successfully hosted a fellow for 1 year through the KCH international fellowship programme.KCH clinicians are working with the KCH commercial department to establish a regular programme within the centre. This has the potential to connect KCH with other high-quality centres of excellence for obesity management internationally, bringing opportunities for future partnerships and research.
RCP fellowship programme
Out of 33 centres approved by the Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO), KCH and GSTT were selected to host 2 of 3 candidates completing the obesity fellowship programme offered by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The 1-year programme is fully funded by the RCP and gives fellows the opportunity to advance research and clinical practice within the field of obesity.
King’s Together Fund Seed funding for a 6-month multidisciplinary project
Maximum value: £20,000
Deadline: 03/11/2023
JDRF Diabetes Psychology Fellowship Programme To increase capacity in type 1 diabetes-related clinical psychology and type 1 diabetes related psychology research
Maximum value: $65,000
Deadline: 07/11/2023
Diabetes UK, JDRF and SMF Grand Challenge Workshop For researchers who work in type 1 diabetes to share the challenges they currently face, and researchers who work outside type 1 diabetes to consider how they could apply their skills to solve these issues
Maximum value: £1million
Deadline: 29/11/2023
Overcoming Diabetes Inequalities – taking place on 23rd November 2023, this 1-day event is an opportunity for healthcare professionals, policymakers, researchers, and NHS commissioners to meet with one another, take stock of the activities happening around the UK, upskill, and work together to improve diabetes and related diabetes outcomes for people of Black heritage in the UK. See more above.
Diabetes UK Professional Conference 2024: Abstract Submission – in advance of the 2024 Diabetes UK Professional Conference, taking place at the ExCel Centre from 17th to 19th April 2024, you can now submit abstracts to be considered. Deadline is 9th November 2023 at 5pm.
Become a Diabetes UK Expert by Experience – if you have lived experience of diabetes and are interested in the research funded by Diabetes UK, then joining the Diabetes Research Steering Groups might be the perfect opportunity for you. You don’t need to have previous experience of research, just be prepared to discuss your experience of diabetes and where you feel there are gaps in diabetes care and treatment.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Diabetes Short Course – this new online, six-week course, running from 15th January – 1st March 2024, is now open for applications. It will focus on providing the knowledge and skills in a diabetes-specific cognitive behavioural therapy model and its application in the diabetes setting.
Centre for Translational Medicine Clinical Research Excellence Fellowships: The fellowships aim to support future clinical academic leaders, providing protected time for research for up to two years. Fellowships are open to all health professions, and projects must be focused on understanding disease mechanisms in humans and the translation of these insights into early interventions. Book onto a webinar for more information here. Deadline for applications is Monday 15 January at 5pm.
Obesity masterclass - KCH has developed a new holistic obesity management masterclass to showcase the King’s Obesity Service, aimed at nationally and internationally audiences. Topics include surgery, medicine, nutrition, exercise, and psychology. More details will be released in the next few weeks.
Stay in Touch
We hope these quarterly newsletters keep you informed about news, updates, and opportunities across our partnership.
If you would be interested in contributing to future editions or have a publication to share with our readers, please contact us at DEO@kcl.ac.uk.
If you would prefer not to receive these newsletters, you can unsubscribe using the button below:
