Making Excellent Diabetes Care Child’s Play
This article first appeared in the June 2008 NHS Yorkshire and the Humber Newslink.
Clinicians, young people and their carers came together on 9 May 2008 to work out how NHS Yorkshire and the Humber can achieve and maintain excellent diabetes for children and young people across the area. It proved an active and productive day, with more than a hint of laughter!
The
engagement workshop in full flow with part of the 'Getting Sorted' team from Leeds Metropolitan University.
The SHA diabetes programme is currently looking at how Yorkshire and the Humber can use IT to change the way in which diabetes care can be delivered to meet the needs of people with diabetes, their carers and clinicians. In January 2008 the programme brought over 200 people together to consider this issue and as a result, one of the key areas where delegates believed that change was really important was for children and young people with diabetes. And so the Children and Young People’s diabetes event was formed.
Over 80 delegates joined the event, including young people with diabetes to hear about the SHA diabetes programme. Dr Sheila Shribman, National Clinical Director for Children, Young People and Maternity Services followed this by discussing the national perspective and highlighted the developments being made in managing other long term conditions. Dr Ian Lewis, Consultant Paediatric Oncologist, Deputy Medical Director for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and SHA Darzi Review Clinical Lead for Children, followed on from this by outlining the progress being achieved by the Year of Care and the Darzi Review.
The emphasis of the day though was on gathering the thoughts and ideas of the delegates and Dr Fiona Campbell, Consultant Paediatrician/Diabetologist and Clinical Director for Paediatric Medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, invited everyone to participate in one of the five workshops: Education and Training, Research and Audit, Transitional Care, Engagement and Commissioning. Dr Richard Pope, Consultant Diabetologist and Medical Director at Airedale Hospitals NHS Trust, also gave people the opportunity to take a look around the new functionality in the revitalized TPP SystmOne Diabetes Module. Soon to be introduced by Bradford and Airedale Teaching PCT the module could revolutionise the experience of people with diabetes and clinicians by enabling the sharing of information between clinicians with a legitimate relationship and if the individual consents to sharing.
Anna Morton, Strategic Integration Lead comments: “Having Richard available to demonstrate the practical value and benefits that technology will bring for people living with diabetes and those treating them, was a real bonus. It was an extremely creative and lively day with plenty of activity and debate. Those who chose to attend the Engagement workshop led by Liz Webster and ‘Getting Sorted’, from Leeds Metropolitan University had their ‘get up and go’ tested with a few lively activities. But this sat alongside the valuable opportunity for delegates to ask questions directly of young people living with diabetes about their preferences and desires and get honest answers.
“In the afternoon we got a fantastic chance to see the renowned Cragrats reflect the real treatment experiences for young people living with diabetes in a series of role play scenarios. No harm was done as the delegates were invited to manipulate the scenes step-by-step which culminated in an enormous amount of laughter! The day was summed up by gathering all the feedback in and from this we’ll be integrating the valuable outputs into the diabetes programme – which won’t exactly be child’s play. So we must say a huge thank you to all our delegates and the contributions of all our workshop facilitators for making it such a productive day.”
For more information about the diabetes programme click here
