A NEW clinic offering specialist care for people with diabetes in Derbyshire is one of the first of its kind in the East Midlands.

Staff are hailing the project, based at Stoneleigh House in Borrowash, as the future of health care for patients with long-term conditions because it offers treatment away from hospital.

If the clinic is a success, health bosses in the city will look at setting up similar schemes focusing on the treatment of other long-term illnesses.

For the past few years, the Government has been calling for the treatment of conditions such as epilepsy, arthritis, heart failure and lung conditions to be moved out of hospitals.

The new clinic, based in the Victoria Avenue centre, was one of the first in the region to put those plans into practice when it opened on Monday.

It means that patients from five GP surgeries will no longer need to visit Derby City General Hospital for treatment.

Diabetes specialist Dr Rustam Rea said he did not know of any other centres like it in Nottinghamshire and said plans were only just being put in place in Leicestershire.

He said: "It's primarily about convenience for the patients. It also benefits the hospitals by giving them more time to focus on patients who need to see a range of specialists working in different areas."

The clinic will treat the 2,300 patients with diabetes who attend the five GP surgeries that are behind the project.

They are Park Medical Centre, in Chaddesden; Overdale Medical Centre, in Borrowash; Chapel Street Practice, in Spondon; Oakwood Medical Centre, in Oakwood; and Park Farm Medical Centre, in Allestree.

NHS Derby City has given the project a £250,000 annual budget for the next three years, based on the previous cost of GP and hospital care of those patients.

Services offered will include examinations for common complications of diabetes, such as eye and foot problems.

Patients will be referred to the clinic, not only if they have diabetes, but also if they are at risk of getting it.

Dr Rea said it was possible a clinic could open in the city in October.

He said: "The service will probably start off in Pear Tree because we know that the south-east Asian population has a much higher rate of diabetes."

One patient who has already been treated at Stoneleigh House is Lewis Blackburn, who has type 2 diabetes.

The 64-year-old, of Derby Road, Draycott, said: "All the treatment I need is under one roof and closer to home."

A spokeswoman for the charity Diabetes UK said that, since 1996, the number of people with diabetes has increased from 1,400,000 to 2,500,000. By 2025, it is estimated more than 4,000,000 people will have it.