Facebook , Twitter, the last few years have shown the ease of communication using technology where all aspects of someone can be followed on line and where a person’s once confidential information now seems to be open to the world. Compare that to communication between health care professionals involved in a patients care. This is of particular importance when it comes to diabetes and the multi-disciplinary approach taken including input from doctors, nurses, podiatrists, dieticians, retinal screeners – the list goes on. The information divide is most marked between primary care (where most practices are paperless) and secondary care (where paper predominates or a variety of clinical information tools exist). The major issue from all these different systems is the lack of continuity of care, duplication of care (such as foot screening) and delays in passing on changes to a patients’ management.

Read More ››

The adolescent and young adult years are difficult enough for a young person to handle, the additional burden of managing diabetes making this even harder. Although there are a handful of patients with Type 2 diabetes at this age – usually from certain ethnic groups or with a variety of genetic syndromes, the vast majority of patients have Type 1 diabetes. Whilst this is often diagnosed in relatively early childhood, the peak age of diagnosis is at 10-14 years. As such, the majority of these patients take insulin with all the issues that this involves.

Read More ››