Help improve access to diabetes education

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Diabetes UK

Diabetes UK

Know Diabetes. Fight Diabetes
Staff member

Hi folks,

For those of you who have ever experienced difficulties in accessing diabetes education, or perhaps feel that others have not had the same opportunities to access diabetes education as yourself – Diabetes UK are looking for your voice.

They have launched the next part of their Taking Control campaign and are calling for more people to be able to go on diabetes education courses so more people can confidently manage their condition, whatever type of diabetes they have.

They’re asking people to demand that diabetes education is made a priority in their local area.

If you click here you can join the campaign.

You just need to fill in your details and then you’ll be presented with a draft letter you can edit to your heart’s content or add your own experiences too.

If you want to find out more about what diabetes education courses and how they help you can visit the website where there is plenty more videos and people with Type 1 and Type 2 talking about what courses are like.

Any questions, please ask away - I’ll try my best to answer them 🙂

Thanks!
 
You actually have to start at the grass roots as in the HCP's especially so called diabetes nurses who work in the GP surgery. Examples being I don't do carbs have no idea what they are and as to a pump I want nothing to do with those new fangled things!! Then the silly bat sends a letter to demand my attendance for a diabetes review with her. ...................... Thanks but no thanks.
 
There do seem to be quite a few in the area where I live. It seems a shame that there is not equal access everywhere. Everyone who has diabetes should be helped as much as possible.
 
@Hannah M it's safer to avoid all HCP's with even the slightest bit of knowledge, after almost 52 years with diabetes I tend to just get on with life and say hello to my consultant once a year discus the weather for 10 mins so I am pump compliant and that's it. I do find it very frustrating when my knowledge of diabetes is well advanced from a so called expert who doesn't even understand the concept of a CGM.
 
Have to say - my course helped me Sue - it wasn't DAFNE but taught similar things - I could already carb count (cos we all HAD to, didn't we!! LOL) so that was no prob whatever - but it was the expert Dose Adjustment that I hadn't managed to teach myself. I only needed a few clues and then I was up and running.

It had simply never occurred to me to experiment with myself as the guinea pig - I simply did NOT realise you were actually expected to do this! - cos nobody ever told me that. When you've been diagnosed a good while - everyone especially medics assume you already know stuff - and quite often - you don't!

It was interesting though to meet another lady on the course - who had been told exactly the same as me when she went onto Basal Bolus - we were BOTH told - by the DSN - that we absolutely must never, ever carb count again in our lives and must forget ALL that right NOW - or there would be TROUBLE. I said I wasn't going to mention that because it's so completely potty - I just came home and told Pete and said 'I said Yes - but shan't!' - and he'd been around when his youngest's best friend was T1 and they learned the 'rules' so she could have sleep-overs - and meals - at their house, and he agreed it sounded bats - and since I'd never met anyone else who'd been told this - so NASTILY - I sort of thought it must be a figment of my imagination!

The current DSNs, consultant and dietician could not believe what we were telling them. I was really pleased we could corroborate each other's story.

But anyway Sue - things have come on a lot in the NHS generally since you had your pump and your experience presumably would be very different today.

We should NEVER turn down the offer of education about anything that affects us - I don't think I'm an expert - cos nobody who has ever lived could ever possibly know EVERY thing!
 
trophywench said:
But anyway Sue - things have come on a lot in the NHS generally since you had your pump and your experience presumably would be very different today.
Click to expand...
LMAO dream on, practice nurse hasn't changed one bit.
I am classed as totally non compliant ................. I use animal insulin and no one knows about it and don't want to know. The consultant I see once a year I have seen before as he has picked the pieces up after an Addison's crisis, he great but his knowledge of CGM use or even the concept beggars belief. Mind you he was the one who told my CCG to fund my continued pump use or face legal action and when I first met him he asked about animal insulin who made it etc., so he is 100% better than the others in Devon and Cornwall.
Met one very DSN down at Truro who told me that animal insulin could not be used in a pump, even though I pointed out pumps were invented before synthetic insulin. She would not accept this and quoted research papers she had read, so I very gently pointed out to her the papers were 40 years old and things had moved on since then. That didn't go down well 🙄 Madam then started a vendetta against me which lasted well over 8 years, this included refusing pump renewal getting her side kick in the pct to audit my consumable usage twice and being told by her that she resented paying for my pump and supplies. I actually use less than the average pumper as was proved. 🙂 my current consultant has put a stop to that as my pump is funded via a different hospital and the bill sent to the CCG. Pity the vindictive baggage hasn't been sacked as there is no room in the NHS for people like this.
 
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