DSN Forum newsletter – August 2020

Obesity programme launched
NHS England has announced it is extending and aiding easier access to the Healthier You service, which was first launched in specific areas in 2016. Individuals are now able to check their risk of developing type 2 diabetes via an online tool. The Know Your Risk tool is hosted by Diabetes UK, and those accessing it are asked a few questions such as age, weight and ethnicity. If their risk score is moderate or high, they will be able to refer themselves to a local Healthier You programme for remote or online support.

The Healthier You programme includes weight loss support group sessions by video link or telephone with a coach, online support groups and, in some areas, access to wearable technology to monitor physical activity. From August, there will also be a specific campaign to promote the programme to black and South Asian communities after research revealed they are more at risk of type 2 diabetes at a younger age.

Please share the tool with patients, carers, family, friends and colleagues: https://riskscore.diabetes.org.uk

Virtual clinics
Diabetes teams across the country are gradually getting back to seeing people again; this may be via video calls but it is nice to have face-to-face contact again. For some, the use of virtual clinics has great benefits as they are convenient, easy to access and do not require driving to the hospital and finding parking. However, as healthcare professionals, we need to learn a new way of performing our consultations. The new quick reference guide from the Primary Care Diabetes Society provides essential information and resources for conducting a safe and effective remote diabetes review.

On the other hand, virtual clinics are not for everyone, especially those who have no access to the technology, and diabetes teams need to continue to adapt to ensure that people who are unable to access these virtual clinics are still provided with care and support.

For those who have used the virtual clinics (e.g. Attend Anywhere), we have had positive feedback and we can see that these types of clinics are here to stay in diabetes care.

Insulin Safety Week
This year for Insulin Safety Week (which fell on 6–12 July), the DSN Forum recruited some friends to help them raise awareness across our social media platforms. Of course, it had to involve a video premiere, this time with a multidisciplinary team effort and a pretty cool insulin rhyme!!

We were joined by some super-fun colleagues, including pharmacists, GPwSIs in diabetes and fellow DSNs across the UK. With a total of 13 of us in one video, each with our own lines, what could go wrong?! You can view our video here.

Throughout the week we also produced some helpful infographics in keeping with the Six Steps to Insulin Safety, and we posted these throughout the week to help get the message out there about the importance of insulin safety.

There were many great examples of diabetes teams getting involved throughout the week with their own videos and social media posts, not forgetting the all-important green Insulin Safety T-shirts and the Insulin Safety Week and TREND Diabetes insulin safety resources.

DPC Summer Forum
The Diabetes Professional Care Summer Forum has been running every week for the past 5 weeks. It was designed to put the main outcomes from the ADA Scientific Sessions into practice. You have perhaps noticed that the DSN Forum did a Twitter take-over of the @DiabetesPC account for a few nights during the summer forum, and we hope we have given you a DSN perspective of the sessions. It has been a fun and educational way to spend our evenings. Plus our very own Amanda Epps has been part of the expert panel on two of the weeks. An extra session was completed on 29 July to answer all the questions from the previous five sessions.

Other effects of the pandemic
We must not forget the impact the pandemic is having on other services and people in the NHS: the restrictions to visitors in hospital and the need to attend appointments alone mean that so many people are alone when they receive bad news, chemotherapy, scans, radiology, surgery and other big, life-changing health events.

To give some context, consider pancreatic cancer and type 3c diabetes, an aggressive and often life-limiting diagnosis. Imagine having a first visit and being told the disease is advanced and there are no treatment options, or that there is a treatment and you may, or may not, live for 12 months. You receive this information and then along comes the DSN, with a job to do, meters to teach, insulin to prescribe, injections to teach, a review to be arranged. “You can go now, ring me tomorrow”, and you go home to share this devastating news. How can anyone square this scenario? It’s happening to us all, and it’s sickening and heartbreaking.

Diabetes 101
As previously mentioned in our newsletters, we have all been working hard on the Diabetes 101 project too. A few of the group recently decided to undertake the Couch to 5K challenge and, whilst most of the group are doing amazingly at getting to their goals, a few are a tad injured, with blisters and dodgy knees.

From this, an idea sprang within us! We thought we would encourage everyone to take part in achieving a summer activity goal. This could be anything from walking, running, scooting, roller skating, or even exercising from a chair. We have a lot of weight lifters too. This was not to push exercise on people or indeed to be judgemental. It was more to motivate each other: on the days when its raining, and when you have worked all day and can’t be bothered to do it, we are all there to encourage one another.

We also partnered up with the amazing Paul Coker, 1BloodyDrop on Twitter, to do some tutorials over the summer on how best to manage your diabetes when taking part in physical activity. Common themes such as hypoglycaemia were addressed. You can follow everyone taking part using the #RunDMC25K hashtag. We also made some pretty awesome videos together as a team, throwing a baton (or rather, carrot) around the UK. You can check these out on the DSN Forum TikTok account.

Diabetes 101 Downloaded
The group recently conducted our first ever online conference! We held it for people living with diabetes over the course of a weekend, and we were lucky enough to have over 120 participants. Healthcare professionals took it in turns to share data and experiences and also some science with those who came along. We also had an afternoon tea party all together at the end of the day! It was a great day and we received some amazing comments from those who attended. For anyone who missed the day and would like to catch up, the sessions will all be uploaded to the Diabetes 101 YouTube channel.

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