A partnership between Diabetes UK and Tesco has contributed to an upturn of almost 40 per cent in the charity’s finances, according to its latest accounts.

Diabetes UK’s annual accounts for the year to December 2013 show its income was £38.8m, compared to expenditure of £33.5m.

This is up 39.6 per cent on the previous year when the charity's income was £27.8m and spending at £29.7m.

The charity’s lucrative partnership with Tesco launched in March 2013 and raised £12m for the charity between then and July 2014.

The money was raised through Tesco staff fundraising events, promotional products and donations of 0.0125p for each use of a Tesco ATM.

Barbara Young, chief executive for Diabetes UK, said in the annual report: “This year we received more donations than ever before, thanks partly to our hugely successful National Charity Partnership with Tesco, but also through other corporate partners and 171,698 individual donors.”

Thanks to its boost in income the charity said it has launch a series of new projects across the UK.

“We delivered the UK’s biggest ever Type 2 diabetes awareness campaign, which reached millions across the country,” said Young. “We launched new services for young people with Type 1 diabetes, and e-learning programmes for people with Type 2 diabetes and healthcare professionals. We lobbied for a change in legislation which will see better care for children with Type 1 diabetes in schools become law. And we announced a multi-million pound call, our biggest ever, for new vaccine-related research projects, to bring us a step closer to a future without diabetes.”