The move coincided with World Diabetes Day and aims to make Scotland the UK leader in tackling a condition which medical experts believe will reach epidemic proportions in 10 years.

Health Minister Susan Deacon said that the new Scottish Diabetes Framework will "raise standards of care for the 120,000 Scots who currently suffer from diabetes".

The framework sets new national standards for patient care and new guidelines on treatment for health professionals.

It contains plans to:

• establish an education trust by March 2002 to provide high quality professional diabetes training programmes;

• offer all patients with the condition an annual blood sugar test by September 2002, the results of which will be recorded on new local diabetes clinical management systems;

• record patients' eye status by September 2003 to help detect and prevent diabetes-related sight loss, and

• establish managed clinical networks for diabetes in every NHS board area by September 2004.

Ms Deacon said that the full diabetes framework will be completed by the end of the year.

She said it would "put Scotland at the forefront of diabetes care and make a very real difference to patients lives".

Diabetes is a condition in which the body cannot control the level of sugar, or glucose, in the bloodstream.

Health problems

Nine in 10 diabetics have type-2 diabetes, which usually develops later in life, unlike type-1, or juvenile diabetes, which can leave sufferers needing insulin injections from their childhood, teens or twenties.

It can lead to damaged blood vessels, and is often not diagnosed until complications have set in.

On average sufferers die eight years early, and are at higher risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and even limb amputation.