Supermarket deliveries to diabetics

[Hils29]

Hi, I’m new here and mother of a Type 1 diabetic who has been told to isolate for 12 weeks. We’ve been battling with Sainsbury’s to organise an online food delivery. She was initially allocated a delivery slot and then this was removed. After further hours trying to get through, they’ve taken her account number and email and she’s been told someone will email her - but they wouldn’t take details of her diabetes and couldn’t say how the decision would be made. I fear they have a limited ‘extremely vulnerable’ list which doesn’t include diabetics. Has anyone experience of this? It seems there should be a link between the advice diabetic clinicians are giving and the information that supermarkets are using. Sorry if this issue has appeared before.

 

[grovesy]

Hi, I’m new here and mother of a Type 1 diabetic who has been told to isolate for 12 weeks. We’ve been battling with Sainsbury’s to organise an online food delivery. She was initially allocated a delivery slot and then this was removed. After further hours trying to get through, they’ve taken her account number and email and she’s been told someone will email her - but they wouldn’t take details of her diabetes and couldn’t say how the decision would be made. I fear they have a limited ‘extremely vulnerable’ list which doesn’t include diabetics. Has anyone experience of this? It seems there should be a link between the advice diabetic clinicians are giving and the information that supermarkets are using. Sorry if this issue has appeared before.

Unfortunately unless Diabetics have other conditions that make them extremely vulnerable, they do not fall in to the category.

 

[Browser]

Unfortunately unless Diabetics have other conditions that make them extremely vulnerable, they do not fall in to the category.

Your quite correct but I thought that 70+ elderly diabetics were classed in a vulnerable group. (albeit, not in the top priority groups).

 

[grovesy]

Not as far as I am aware.
I think the messaging on the risks has been badly managed, I suspect it should had been better thought out.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi, I’m new here and mother of a Type 1 diabetic who has been told to isolate for 12 weeks. We’ve been battling with Sainsbury’s to organise an online food delivery. She was initially allocated a delivery slot and then this was removed. After further hours trying to get through, they’ve taken her account number and email and she’s been told someone will email her - but they wouldn’t take details of her diabetes and couldn’t say how the decision would be made. I fear they have a limited ‘extremely vulnerable’ list which doesn’t include diabetics. Has anyone experience of this? It seems there should be a link between the advice diabetic clinicians are giving and the information that supermarkets are using. Sorry if this issue has appeared before.

Hello @Hils29

Sorry to hear about your runaround with the supermarkets.

Ordinarily Type 1 isnt enough to get you on the 1.5 million ‘extremely vulnerable’ list which is reserved for:

• people who have received an organ transplant and remain on ongoing immunosuppression medication
• people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy or radiotherapy
• people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia who are at any stage of treatment
• people with severe chest conditions such as cystic fibrosis or severe asthma (requiring hospital admissions or courses of steroid tablets)
• people with severe diseases of body systems, such as severe kidney disease (dialysis)

We can’t tell why your daughter has been told to self isolate for 12 weeks. Having diabetes alone does not put someone into the ’full isolation’ group, but they still must keep very strict social distancing advice. Self Isolation recommendations are being made to those at extreme risk in the categories above. Many of these people will have diabetes also. If your daughter has been advised to fully isolate at this time and are unsure why, we would suggest you continue to keep to this advice and speak to the HCP who gave the instruction regarding the specific details of the need for full isolation in her case.