Diabetes casts a shadow right across our society. It strikes at children and young people, at those in the working years of life and at one in four people of retirement age. Numbers affected are growing fast and with them the increasing risk of visual disability, kidney failure, gangrene, heart attacks and stroke, the so-called 'complications of diabetes'.

Bad news, yes, but there is important good news too. We have learnt a great deal about this disease and its complications. With the proper application of that new knowledge, the risks of developing these devastating complications can be greatly reduced. Blindness can be prevented, kidney function preserved, limbs protected and risk of heart attack and stroke much diminished.

Some of this relief will come from the activities of doctors, nurses and other health care profesionals working as a team. But it is other team members who will bring their work to full fruition. Chief among these is the person with diabetes, supported by family, friends and carers. Knowledge of diabetes, how to manage it and how to reconstruct a full and rewarding life must flow freely through the whole of this patient-provider partnership. It is the creation of this flow of knowledge, which is the central mission of Warwick Diabetes Care.

Education, in its broadest sense, is the weapon to defeat diabetes. Only education can convert the great and proven advances in management and treatment of diabetes into the day to day practice of good diabetes care. Only understanding will enable us to ensure that the fruits of discovery are sensitively and effectively matched to the needs of each individual. Much of this is relatively uncomplicated. Much of diabetes care consists of doing simple things well. But they must be well taught and well understood.

There is now universal recognition of the crucial importance of an ongoing process of information and education in achieving the best that modern medicine has to offer. This is the message that rings loud and clear at all levels - from the St Vincent Declaration on Diabetes Care of the World Health Organisation and the International Diabetes Federation, through national Health Departments and local Health Authorities, to Primary Care and Hospital Clinics. But it is the delivery of these messages at grass roots by the health care team that is vital to complete the mobilisation and win the battle against diabetes.

Turning fine words into everyday actions is the goal of Warwick Diabetes Care. Using the best modern techniques for the teaching and training of health care providers, measuring the effectiveness of its efforts and continuously seeking to improve its performance, Warwick Diabetes Care will fashion a new, responsive educational partnership in which all can share. There is much hard work to be done but much health improvement to be gained. All must wish this ambitious project good fortune.