An Australian study, published in the BMJ, has concluded that telephone coaching of type 2 diabetes patients by practice nurses has no effect on glycaemic control. The authors investigated whether evidence, mostly drawn from studies in the USA, that diabetes nurses using complex algorithms during telephone advice consultations were able to improve glycaemic control and lipid parameters, could be extrapolated to real world general practice. The study was set in 59 general practices in Victoria, Australia. Participating practices were divided into the intervention group (30), who received telephone coaching, and the control group (29), who received standard diabetes care.