Doctor near Leamington has been chosen as one of 21 inspiring individuals in the UK to be given funding for projects fighting the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic

A doctor near Leamington has been chosen as one of 21 inspiring individuals in the UK to be given funding for projects fighting the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Doctor Tim Robbins from Weston under Wetherley will develop testing and monitoring for high-risk Covid-19 patients with diabetes who come from deprived communities across the Warwick district and Coventry.

The money is from the Covid-19 Action Fund, a new fund launched by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (WCMT) for urgent projects by Churchill Fellows to combat the effects of Covid-19 in healthcare and many other areas of UK life.

The projects range from preventing domestic abuse, housing rough sleepers and educating children in care to expanding food production, providing trauma therapy for key workers and supporting BAME families bereaved by Covid-19.

They will be undertaken by Churchill Fellows from across the UK including Bristol, Cornwall, Denbighshire, Devon, Dorset, East Sussex, Hampshire, London, Manchester, Tyne and Wear, Warwickshire and West Sussex.

In Dr Robbins' case, he will be looking at the link with diabetes and Covid-19.

Research shows that people with diabetes are at greater risk from Covid-19 - and this risk is heightened even further if they come from a deprived background or community.

Dr Robbins will use his grant to monitor the health and wellbeing of Covid-19 patients from deprived communities who have diabetes.

He has led work to issue digital glucose sensors for in-patients with Covid-19 and diabetes within his NHS Trust, allowing much closer monitoring than the usual finger-prick tests, so that they can be treated with the right healthcare support.

So far, this work has only been possible in hospital settings but he will use the grant to expand it into hard-to-reach and deprived high-risk populations after hospital discharge.

This is needed because the mental and physical impacts of Covid-19 will last longer in such populations and may widen already existing health inequalities.

Dr Robbins will engage further with these communities, focussing not only on blood-sugar control but also on mental health needs.

He will develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of such a model via his NHS Trust - University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust - with the aim that it could be rolled out more widely. Tim Robbins' Churchill Fellowship to the USA explored patient-centred digital health and personalised care.

Jeremy Soames, WCMT chairman and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, in whose memory the Churchill Fellowship was founded, said: “In today’s urgent situation, the Churchill Fellows' contribution to the national effort is remarkable.

"They are proven experts in their fields, working on the frontline and making an impact where it is most needed.

"I believe my grandfather would have been immensely proud of what today's Churchill Fellows are achieving in his name, during the greatest challenge our nation has faced since the war.”