A huge congratulations to Dr David Unwin at Norwood Surgery in Southport who has won the NHS innovator of the year accolade at the NHS Leadership Recognition Awards.  

Dr Unwin, a NHS Southport and Formby CCG member GP, was up against 10 other regional finalists and took the top title due to his work with diabetes patients. 

For the past three years Dr Unwin and his team have worked to motivate diabetes patients to change to low carb diets to improve their condition.

The practice has published four papers on the subject, with one paper classed in the top 5% of the British Medical Journal's most popular articles.

Dr Unwin said: "I am absolutely thrilled to win this award, being up against ten others and looking around the room at the talent that was there I didn't think I had a very strong chance of winning at all.

"When my name was called I was overwhelmed, it's the most prestigious award I think I will ever win."

Dr Unwin has been with Norwood Surgery for 30 years and during that time has won several other awards.

He was named GP of the Year in the Mersey Region in 2012 and the surgery won the Team Practice of the year for the Mersey region in 2013.

The team were also finalists for the BMJ primary care team of the year in 2014.