A Birmingham hospital will today unveil its plans for a new £11.6 million diabetes centre which will provide more specialist care, research and education facilities.
Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Heartlands and Solihull hospitals, is already an established centre of excellence for diabetes care but the new unit will put the trust at the cutting edge of research and patient care.
The original centre, built in the early 1900s, is to be ripped down and replaced with a larger £5 million facility for outpatients, while a further £6.4 million is invested in an adjoining research complex at Heartlands Hospital.
When it first opened, patients made more than 10,000 visits to the diabetes centre but that has now risen by 150 per cent to 25,000 patient visits.
Professor Tony Barnett, the trust's director of diabetes care, said this will enable medics to see more patients and provide state-of-the-art research laboratories.
He said: "Diabetes and related illnesses are increasing at a frightening rate. The good news is that complications can be greatly reduced by quality care from a multiprofessional team.
"About 80 per cent of diabetes patients will die from cardiovascular disease or go on to develop blindness, kidney failure and other related complications.
"We've also got a massive problem with the south Asian population in Birmingham who are six times more at risk of diabetes and face a 50 per cent increased risk of a heart attack or stroke."
Diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in Britain and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Prof Barnett added: "Not only will this new diabetes centre enable us to treat more patients but we can now take a closer look at what causes diabetes, what causes its long-term complications and develop new treatments for these conditions.
"The expansion of the service at Heartlands will benefit the people of Birmingham, whilst the research may benefit diabetes sufferers throughout the world."
The multi-million pound project is being funded by the NHS and related industries, including a £1 million donation from diabetes care firm Novo Nordisk.
