Diabetic care home residents being failed

Mon, 15 Nov 2010
A new report by charity Diabetes UK has found that residents of care homes that have diabetes are being admitted to hospital every 25 minutes because of failings in screening and training .

It was found that six out of 10 care homes in England with diabetic residents were not providing any training to their staff about the disease, that just 23 per cent of care homes were screening residents for diabetes on admission, and that only 28 per cent screen for diabetes annually.

The report, ‘Diabetes in Care Homes – Awareness, Screening, Training’, highlighted that these missed screenings could mean up to 13,500 care home residents have undiagnosed type 2 diabetes and be at risk of associated complications, which include heart disease, kidney failure and stroke .

Baroness Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, said "These report findings are an indictment of the standards of diabetes care provided by a worrying number of our country’s care homes. We estimate as many as a quarter of care home residents in England, around 56,000, have diabetes. To discover, therefore, that many homes fail to provide any training to their staff or screen for this common yet serious condition is truly alarming."

Training for care home staff should involve guidance on identifying symptoms, measuring and monitoring levels of blood sugar, recognising and treating hypoglycaemia, administering insulin, and being aware of the importance of dietary timings.

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