The Royal College of Physicians’ (RCP) Diabetes Care Accreditation Programme (DCAP) has reached a major milestone, with Princess Royal University Hospital becoming the first hospital to achieve level 2 accreditation through the programme.
Established by the RCP Accreditation Unit in May 2023, DCAP aims to improve the quality of inpatient care for people with diabetes and by setting national quality standards and measuring service performance through external peer assessment.
Dr Daniel Flanagan, DCAP clinical lead, said:
‘On behalf of the RCP DCAP, we would like to congratulate the Princess Royal University Hospital on achieving accreditation of their hospital diabetes services. They are the first hospital to achieve this which is an important landmark for their team and people with diabetes using their services. An impressive team of clinicians have achieved a great deal of improvement in as short time. The support of the managerial team has been crucial in this work.’
Princess Royal University Hospital were congratulated in the assessment team’s report on ‘its compassionate and patient-centred inpatient service’ which had a focus on patient safety, and clear guidelines and protocols to support inpatient diabetes care.
The report highlighted the team’s achievement:
‘This has required excellent clinical leadership and strong support from the whole multidisciplinary team. The commitment to doing the right thing for your patients is clear. Each member of the team has shown dedication to providing a high-quality service. This is reflected in the positive reports from those people with diabetes who have been inpatients at your service.’
The first level 2 accreditation also represents an important step for the programme, following several years of work to help hospital teams review their services, identify gaps in care provision and increase ability to evidence the care they provide. The DCAP standards were developed in partnership with the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists, the Joint British Diabetes Societies for Inpatient Care, Diabetes UK and the Diabetes Inpatient Specialist Nurse UK Group.
Through DCAP, hospital diabetes services are assessed against standards covering leadership and operational delivery, clinical effectiveness and processes, person-centred care, safety and risk, improvement and workforce.
There are now 18 participating services across England, with three having reached level 1 accreditation and a further five working on their level 1 evidence upload.
Daniel added:
‘The idea of developing measures of diabetes care in hospital and comparing care across units nationally first started 6 years ago. Developing the standards, engaging with hospital teams, training an assessment team and developing a reporting structure has taken a great deal of time and effort. The first accredited service is an important milestone. We look forward to working with other hospitals in improving care for people with diabetes in hospital.’
Hospitals interested in joining the programme can find out more DCAP website or in the RCP membership magazine, Commentary.
Read our blogs from Diabetes Week 2026:
- Celebrating Diabetes Week 2026: collaboration, innovation and the view from Wales
- Celebrating Diabetes Week 2026: why we need to invest in our diabetes workforce
- Celebrating Diabetes Week 2026: reducing inequality in young adult diabetes care
- Celebrating Diabetes Week 2026: from knowing what works to making it standard everywhere.