The diabetes strategy launched this month contains a number of practical and achievable recommendations but it doesn’t have an implementation plan – yet. We caught up with Professor Paul Zimmet Director Emeritus of the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute who reassured us that this strategy won’t be a repeat of 2000-2004 strategy where “nothing happened”.

 The launch of the new National Diabetes Strategy 2016-2020 by the Australian Government to coincide with World Diabetes Day on November 14 is the first time in more than a decade that Australia has had a national strategy for diabetes.

In order to tackle the growing epidemic it focuses strongly on prevention as well as on care and management to keep people with diabetes healthy and productive.

The strategy outlines seven major goals:

1. Prevent people developing type 2 diabetes;
2. Promote awareness and earlier detection of type 1 and type 2 diabetes;
3. Reduce the occurrence of diabetes-related complications and improve quality of life among people with diabetes;
4. Reduce the impact of pre-existing and gestational diabetes in pregnancy;
5. Reduce the impact of diabetes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
6. Reduce the impact of diabetes among other priority groups; and
7. Strengthen prevention and care through research, evidence and data

You can read the full strategy here.

What about implementing the strategy?

Although there is no implementation plan for the strategy as yet, Professor Zimmet says the National Diabetes Strategy Advisory Group, which he co-chaired with Diabetes Australia President Hon Judi Moylan, included overall recommendations on how to implement the strategy in its advice to Government, which was also published at launch.

He is optimistic that an implementation committee will be formed early next year and believes it will be made up of representatives from federal and state and territory governments. He also hopes it might include some of the original advisory group.

Related story: Diabetes strategies need an implementation plan: Colagiuri

But whether on the committee or not, Professor Zimmet is resolute that there will be action and change as a result of the strategy and this will not be a repeat of the 2000-2004 strategy, where “nothing happened”.

Advocacy, lobbying, and more advocacy

“You can be assured, and so can everyone with diabetes in Australia, that Judi Moylan and I will be really sitting on this to make sure that things happen, ”Professor Zimmet told the limbic.

“I think we’ve got a very up-to-date and timely way of tackling diabetes in this country, and it’s now up to us if the government is slow to be very active to make sure it happens.

“We’ll be doing a lot of lobbying and advocacy to make sure things happen, as will, I think, Diabetes Australia and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.”

But Professor Zimmet is hopeful the government won’t need to be pushed, noting that he feels the Minister for Health, the Hon Sussan Ley MP, has a very strong commitment to diabetes.

He also hopes that the reality that diabetes is the fastest growing disease in Australia and that its costs have the potential to cripple the health budget will foster political and bureaucratic enlightenment when it comes to funding the initiatives.

Potential barriers to implementation

The biggest barrier to successful implementation could arise from the strong push by the WHO for governments to have national chronic disease strategies, suggested Professor Zimmet.

“A new strategy like ours is a move in Australia for a national chronic disease strategy and diabetes shares a number of things with heart disease and cancer in relation to prevention.

“But when you get down to the nitty gritty of managing diabetes there are disease-related areas which do not fit into a chronic disease national strategy,” he explained.

There is a danger for us in Australia that diabetes will just get submerged within those chronic disease strategies and a lot of the recommendations we have made then won’t see the light of day, he said.