Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
The NHS is not recruiting enough diabetes specialist nurses (DSNs) to keep pace with the growing number of people diagnosed with diabetes.
This is the finding of new analysis published today by Diabetes UK, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and TREND-UK.
The report, called Diabetes Specialist Nurses: Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Costs, sets out the evidence that DSNs are vital for good patient care and can save the NHS money by reducing the length of time people with diabetes stay in hospital. In the long term, DSNs support people with diabetes to help reduce their risk of health complications which account for 80% of the £10 billion a year the NHS spends on diabetes.
The analysis suggests that staffing levels have been allowed to stagnate – with a third of hospitals now having no specific diabetes inpatient specialist nurse – because of short-term budget pressures. With the number of people diagnosed with diabetes increasing by more than 100,000 a year and with about half of DSNs expected to retire within the next 10 years, the three organisations have warned that DSN staffing levels will soon become unsustainable.
http://www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=c8d4a49c-abdc-4666-a06c-ef1599ab3d8b
This is the finding of new analysis published today by Diabetes UK, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and TREND-UK.
The report, called Diabetes Specialist Nurses: Improving Patient Outcomes and Reducing Costs, sets out the evidence that DSNs are vital for good patient care and can save the NHS money by reducing the length of time people with diabetes stay in hospital. In the long term, DSNs support people with diabetes to help reduce their risk of health complications which account for 80% of the £10 billion a year the NHS spends on diabetes.
The analysis suggests that staffing levels have been allowed to stagnate – with a third of hospitals now having no specific diabetes inpatient specialist nurse – because of short-term budget pressures. With the number of people diagnosed with diabetes increasing by more than 100,000 a year and with about half of DSNs expected to retire within the next 10 years, the three organisations have warned that DSN staffing levels will soon become unsustainable.
http://www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=c8d4a49c-abdc-4666-a06c-ef1599ab3d8b