Bradford is on the brink of a breakthrough in the prevention and care of diabetes, the district's top public health doctor said.

The message comes from Dr Dee Kyle, public health director at Bradford Health Authority, in her annual report which highlights the disease and developments in its care in the district.

The city had identified the disease as a health priority, she said, because of the high number of cases in the district.

Dr Kyle's 56-page report said: "Only a couple of years ago, when carrying out a health needs assessment for diabetes, we skipped over a focus on prevention and began to work on early detection. It is now much clearer that diabetes can be prevented, at least on a population level."

There are more than 9,000 known patients with diabetes in the Bradford district, almost one third of them from South Asian ethnic minority groups.

The service now up and running in Bradford has been praised by Government health secretary Alan Milburn, who visited one of the city's satellite diabetic clinics and nurse-led services, and noted this was the sort of thing he would like to see across the country.

Bradford Health Authority had been quoted by the National Audit Office as an example of an area where real attempts were being made to meet the challenge of targeting people at risk of developing diabetes, and who might find health education material less accessible.

Ways of detecting the disease early which have been pioneered in Bradford include testing people as they leave mosques, and diabetes specialist nurses working in the community offering support, information and advice to newly-diagnosed diabetics and their families.

Dr Kyle said: "The facts about the growth of diabetes in populations who eat more and walk less, and the complications of diabetes which can be devastating - death, blindness, amputations, kidney failure - must be acknowledged."