Peter walked out to his bins. He returned with horrible burns

Mr Hull spent barely five minutes outside before returning with burns to the bottoms of his feet that required medical attention.

Yet he did not notice his injuries for hours.

"Actually, it was my wife who said 'ooh, what have you done?', Mr Hull said.

What he had done was - after a long, sleepless night - absentmindedly walk barefoot on concrete in the middle of a 40-degree day. He did not feel any pain because of preexisting nerve damage linked to diabetes.

Mr Hull, from Bendigo in north-west Victoria, is not the only person to suffer such burns. Every year, 47,000 Australians are hospitalised for diabetes-related foot injuries.

And a group of researchers has a plan to cut that number down.

La Trobe University Bendigo academic Dr Byron Perrin says it is time to get serious about "one of Australia's most urgent and overlooked health issues".

"One of the really big complications of diabetes, in relation to feet, is you lose your ability to feel properly," he said.

Every year, foot injuries linked to diabetes led to 6300 amputations and 2500 deaths, he and researchers from around the country found in research for Diabetes Feet Australia.

They believed health workers could nearly halve amputations and hospitalisations if they could get the money for a new national strategy.

Interventions could be as simple as screening people's feet and giving them properly fitting footwear, Dr Perrin said. They could be as complex as rolling out the right treatments for foot wounds and burns

A proper strategy would cost $30 million a year in research and reforms, Diabetes Feet Australia estimated.

It said the trade-off would be $940 million in savings a year, along with 20,000 fewer hospital admissions and 2800 less amputations.

Mr Hull counts himself as one of the lucky ones. His wounds healed without turning gangrenous and needing to be amputated

"No, that's not happened yet, but I do know people who've had quite severe amputations, loss of limbs, things like that," he said.

And Mr Hull met plenty of people down at the local supermarket in wheelchairs and on mobility scooters.

He liked to strike up conversations with them, to share experiences and find a sense of solidarity.

Mr Hull also has a new rule he makes sure to follow.

"I have to be ultra careful now, after I burnt my feet. Everywhere I go, I've got to wear me shoes," he said.