Managing diabetes when in hospital - Getting good inpatient care

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Diabetes UK

Diabetes UK

Know Diabetes. Fight Diabetes
Staff member
Being in hospital can be a worrying time and we want to make sure you have all the information you need. You can download our inpatient information sheet which explains the care you should receive in hospital.

For more information about diabetes in hospital:

  • Watch Lesley's story on improving diabetes hospital care:
 
Thanks for posting this @Hannah DUK !🙂

The video brings up an important point about foot checks in hospital! Even non diabetics being admitted into hospital during an emergency are dehydrated & that’s excerbated in diabetics. I was very dehydrated when admitted & noticed the skin on my feet drying up & remembered thinking I’ll have to attend to them as soon as I get home. I was in for 2 days & my feet were the last thing on my mind due to other things. By the time I DID get back home a two inch gash had broken open on one of my feet due to the dryness that took a long time to heal! If a foot check was done while in hospital & creams etc. applied that could have been prevented! Yes, I noticed my dry feet on addmittance but, with fighting for my life to breath later that night I completely forgot about it!:(
 
I have been in a couple of times in the last few weeks. I asked the nurses "how many carbs in the meals" ? No one knew. I am quite good at guessing carbs but ? It would help ?🙂
 
No carb info and lack of choice - like I had a few salads which were difficult to get down since the leaves were bone dry along with the cucumber and you didn't even get a slice of tomato to dampen it. You could request a sachet of salad cream but it was unbearable sweet. If you had spud it was always a scoop of mash (no other sort on offer during the 6 days I was in) and no milk or anything resembling butter or marg added so equally dry. Watery gravy, soup so thick the spoon could be supported by it - think the time I ordered it, it was literally liquidised carrots so I didn't bother again. I asked for salt and pepper on lunchtime as the meal was so tasteless and it was like I'd asked for their liver and a bottle of nice Chianti ! I was only allowed pepper, because they 'don't encourage people to add it to their food'. I snorted and said as their patient I'd encourage their kitchen to cook food that had some taste, then - but it fell on completely deaf ears and my best wit was utterly wasted.

They still feed patients and mend us when we break. Why they don't understand that if a diabetic's BG isn't in control our bodies won't heal at all well and then their best efforts and the money that cost the NHS will be wasted, is what I completely fail to be able to understand.

DUK don't offer any advice where you have an operation in a different hospital to where your D is treated. So have nobody to discuss it with. I was admitted to a hospital where I've not been treated for my D (only a cataract operationin Day surgery) through A&E and operated on next day - my pump had to come off and the orthopaedic consultant wanted me on a sliding scale at 2.0u/hr and that was that. The fact that that is between 4x and 8x my normal hourly rate wasn't even discussed with me. Yes I needed more, we all knew my BG was suffering - though my ketones hadn't been checked by then since I didn't even own a meter never having had them and the ward didn't have one either. I deliberately asked the nurse what the rate was when she came to link me up and she told me - I went MAD. They did agree eventually to halve it to 1u - but if I'd accepted it - can you imagine?

Planned ops where you have a chance to consult your D team yourself beforehand, fair enough.
 
Last year I visited a friend in hospital. He had not been diabetic before but as he was being fed steroids intravenously they were checking his blood glucose. Whilst I was there the nurse came to check his BG and it was 31. She said she would have to check with a doctor as to what to do. She was away for over half an hour. When she came back she said she could not find a doctor so ended up phoning 111 for advice.
 
Lilian said:
Last year I visited a friend in hospital. He had not been diabetic before but as he was being fed steroids intravenously they were checking his blood glucose. Whilst I was there the nurse came to check his BG and it was 31. She said she would have to check with a doctor as to what to do. She was away for over half an hour. When she came back she said she could not find a doctor so ended up phoning 111 for advice.
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It makes you think "what are They getting taught ?" 🙂
 
Have you noticed what is on offer at the machines at the end of the wards. Someone in there NEEDS a lesson ?o_O
 
The meals are not diabetic friendly, I had such a kerfuffle one time when I was in hospital trying to find out the carbs in meals , that I gave up and went online to get a guesstimate.
Dinner was carbs, carbs and yet more carbs, with a tiny bit of veg. Brekkie and tea were no better.

It’s the snack trolly that gets me, loads of sweets ,crisps etc .

TBH I am shocked at the lack of knowledge about diabetes by some staff.

Having said that, on my last two hospital stays, I was allowed to deal with insulin myself, they didn’t want to lock it away with my other regular meds, I just had to inform them of my doses.
One Sister was supprised to find out I self tested, erm yes I’m meds that cause hypo’s.
 
The Staff nurse on the ward I was on, was great and really knew quite a lot TBH, lovely lady and really helpful with everything - not ONE stupid question. So - it could have been far worse than it really was.
 
The staff need a lesson. In the staff canteen they could put carb values on dishes. Simple but day after day it might educate them. 😉 I & other patients have to do it :D
 
The key is education though Hobie - my mum brought us up to recognise the 3 food groups so as teenagers we knew the key to not getting fat which was crucial by the 1960s and the advent of Twiggy, plus of course to buy clothes that fitted you, measurements were strict ie if you had a 34 bust you HAD to have a 24 waist and a 35/6 hip for a size 12 and so forth - you cut down more than somewhat on starchy carbs and sugar plus not very much fatty stuff but never ever cut down on protein.

However - young people simply don't get that info any more during their formative years or from their parents. A lot of apparently properly trained chefs aren't taught anywhere near that these days. Daughter is a chef in a large pub - she's forever moaning about the younger staff - including the Head Chef there - not understanding basic stuff like to make a certain sauce, the basis is another sauce with a bit of something added. It wasn't parsley sauce but something like that where you'd just take the basic white sauce and chuck a bit of chopped parsley in it when you run out of the pre-prepared parsley sauce. He told the staff to take a dish off the menu so she asked why? Well we've run out of that sauce was the reply. She countermanded him ….. But he's qualified and experienced enough to work in a pub that serves 1500 covers on a bad very slow weekend !

Convert HIS knowledge down to an average secondary school leaver who doesn't live with a Type 1 dad and there you have your average catering staff. To be kind, I'll add that a fair few of them's first language won't be English …...
 
Our hospital is going to be a nightmare, I know the menu back to front and the only diabetes friendly meal is the salad, which is a foul 70’s school dinner throwback. Whole iceberg leaves, slices of cucumber and tomato, and a blob of cress chucked on. The thought of 3 weeks of that twice a day makes me want to cry, and there is nothing I could eat for breakfast.
 
Madeline said:
Our hospital is going to be a nightmare, I know the menu back to front and the only diabetes friendly meal is the salad, which is a foul 70’s school dinner throwback. Whole iceberg leaves, slices of cucumber and tomato, and a blob of cress chucked on. The thought of 3 weeks of that twice a day makes me want to cry, and there is nothing I could eat for breakfast.
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Good for Rabbits ?😉
 
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