National charity praises NHS trust’s efforts to improve the care of people in Somerset with diabetes

Colleagues at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust who are involved in the care of
people with diabetes have recently been praised as part of a national initiative that
aims to improve services across the country.

The trust’s consultant endocrinologist Dr Alex Bickerton and diabetes nurses Ruth
Hammond and Emily Harrod took part from Yeovil Hospital, while consultant
endocrinologist Dr Isy Douek represented the diabetes service at Musgrove Park
Hospital.

Emily explained: “The main aim of this National Diabetes Audit (NDA) Quality
Improvement Collaborative (QIC) was to address the significant gaps in the use of
insulin pumps among individuals with type 1 diabetes.

“Published data shows that around 90,000 people in England and Wales with blood
glucose (HbA1c) levels greater than 69 mmol/mol are not using insulin pumps, which
highlights the inequalities based on the person’s location, gender, age, ethnicity, and
socioeconomic status.

“To tackle this issue, specialist teams set up a monthly meeting to discuss and
implement quality improvement strategies.

“Our primary objective at Yeovil Hospital was to enhance data collection, so we
could identify patients eligible for insulin pump therapy, as well as to establish a
streamlined pathway for their treatment.

“At the time, we were anticipating a technology appraisal from NHS England, which
outlines a five-year plan for introducing hybrid closed loop systems – integrating
insulin pumps with continuous glucose monitoring – for eligible patients.
“The NDA QIC initiative made a huge difference in helping us to refine our service,
ensuring that we can offer advanced technology to patients in a structured and
equitable manner.

“This approach, alongside the technology appraisal, increased the number of
individuals using this technology, resulting in improved diabetes management and
overall wellbeing.”

Dr Douek added: “Being part of this project enabled us to review our service at
Musgrove Park Hosptial, and we quickly realised that our diabetes nurses and
dietitians were spending a lot of time on administration and technical support.

“This led to us appointing a diabetes support worker,
which has made a huge difference to both patients and the team, and we were also
able to review our pump pathway and implement a hybrid closed loop pathway.

“The new NICE technology appraisal requires much more data collection and
quarterly uploads centrally, to ensure that patient funding continues. We therefore
also updated a database for use across both our acute hospitals to facilitate this.
“We also received a commendation from the national quality improvement team for
our work to improve the care of people living with diabetes, something we’re really
proud of.

Our colleagues at Diabetes UK added a thank you to the trust for taking part in the
qualitive improvement collaborative programme.

Michael Sykes, the National Diabetes Audit quality improvement lead, added: “We
highly commend your team for collaborating, sharing and supporting people living
with diabetes.”