Interests of charities: Diabetes UK has long recognised importance of transparency in funding

EDITOR—Diabetes UK has long recognised the importance of transparency and accountability to our members, as mentioned by Hirst in her letter.1 As the largest patient based charity in the United Kingdom, with nearly 180 000 members, we pride ourselves on ensuring that we put the needs of all people with diabetes first and are not influenced by anything else. We have an extremely tough policy governing all our corporate relations2 and were cited by the Consumers' Association as an example of good practice in its policy report on the topic.3

Diabetes UK is happy to work with pharmaceutical companies and a range of other partners. They help us to undertake the crucial work we believe will improve the lives of people with diabetes. This does not mean that they influence the work we choose to do, or how we do it.

Hirst claims that we receive around £1m from manufacturers of diabetes drugs.1 In total we receive around £750 000 from the pharmaceutical industry as a whole—less than 5% of our income. We are happy to provide anyone with more details of all our income sources. When comparing this with most of our income, which comes from people with diabetes and their relatives, most people can judge for themselves who really influences what we do.