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Shielding or not shielding - new confusion

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RuthB

RuthB

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hello! I have just listened to a discussion on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 about those extra people in England who are being asked to shield. Apparently many women who have had gestational diabetes at any point in the last 10 years or so have now received a letter saying they need to shield. I have type 2, not gestational (never been pregnant sadly) but I am confused why gestational diabetes in the past means shielding, whereas as a type 2 it doesn't?? I am confused and just wondered if anyone on here had any more information about this?
 
It isn't just down to diabetes, there are a number of factors in the new groups, age, BMI, certain medications so not all diabetics of any of the many types will be asked to shield, if you are required to you will be contacted but then again its only advice and doesn't have to be done
 
If you are concerned you should be have been added to the list, maybe contact your Dr.
 
Thanks. I know they are using other factors as well now, to determine who should shield, but the women who were ringing up the radio show were so confused as to why they were on it I got the impression none of the other factors really applied to them! But who knows what their situations actually are. It just felt like gestational diabetes was more of a concern than type 2 and I was curious why that was cause essentially I am nosy! :D
 
Me too @RuthB :D I guess the risk assessment is a bit of a blunt tool so will sometimes pick up people who might not individually need to be on it. Perhaps it also depends on how their GP categorises them?

There have been similar issues with the asthma categorisation too from what I’ve read.
 
RuthB said:
Thanks. I know they are using other factors as well now, to determine who should shield, but the women who were ringing up the radio show were so confused as to why they were on it I got the impression none of the other factors really applied to them! But who knows what their situations actually are. It just felt like gestational diabetes was more of a concern than type 2 and I was curious why that was cause essentially I am nosy! :D
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I heard it too, I don’t think it’s that having had GD is more of a risk than T2, I think it’s that many women who had GD thought it was over once the baby was born, but actually there is a residual risk of them developing T2 and they should be having yearly checks. I think the show took the GD angle because it was new and more interesting a story than us T1 and T2 who’ve been banging on about this for a year!

The GP on the show said that post-GD women actually come under the T2 umbrella, which when combined with all the other new factors (age, ethnicity, BMI, postcode) may nudge them over the risk threshold. It must be a shock for many of them as they’ve gone from general risk all the way to CEV, but I think the idea is to get them their vaccine quicker by doing this, whereas T1 and T2 are already in group 6 for the vaccine schedul.
 
I have just read a Tweet form Partha Kar, he helped write the bit for Diabetes and they did not include previous Gestional Diabetes it it. He seems to think it could be some coding error.
I have also read people ringing up their GP's querying various aspects of this roll out and some seem to be deny knowledge of the process and it is coming from central NHS data.
As with last time its seems this has been implemented without all parties being informed.
 
I wonder if for some former GD patients, the last weight recorded on file was when they were 9 months pregnant, so the computer has got them down as clinically obese. I remember when I was first diagnosed, which was several years after my last pregnancy, my GP looked at my notes (which weren’t open to be seen by the patient then ) and said 'My goodness you’ve lost an awful lot of weight' when I thought I’d lost about a stone, which didn’t seem that much to me, in terms of how shocked my GP seemed. Thinking back, I don’t think I’d been weighed at the surgery since my last ante natal clinic just before giving birth, so it probably looked as if I'd lost about 3 stones.
 
Oh I think it is simply showing up the lack of ability in people with the power to make decisions and announcements.
Simple things such as logic, problem solving and debating skills are not on the curriculum these days.
 
For the recent adding of people to the shielding list, does anyone know if it was a once only exercise or if it is run regularly as people’s health status changes? I’ve had a change in one of the factors today so I’m wondering if I’ll be reassessed automatically against the shielding criteria or not.
 
The current additions were done automatically by an analysis of medical records of those not already shielding. Which is why it lead to some comical inclusions due to mistakes in those records, such as someone 6'2" being listed as 6.2cm tall.

But a physician can, and should, add or remove patients from the shielding list as their conditions change.
 
Becka said:
The current additions were done automatically by an analysis of medical records of those not already shielding. Which is why it lead to some comical inclusions due to mistakes in those records, such as someone 6'2" being listed as 6.2cm tall.

But a physician can, and should, add or remove patients from the shielding list as their conditions change.
Click to expand...
My conditions haven’t changed, but there was also an error with my height which meant I was considered extremely tall and so much lower BMI than in reality. I’ve corrected the height now which increases my BMI so was just wondering if that would automatically trigger anything.
 
I got a letter saying I was vulnerable but it doesn't ask me to shield. Not sure what to make of it really.
 
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