Diabetes care by NHS found wanting

Mon, 30 Apr 2012
A health expert has claimed that the care provided to diabetes patients by the NHS is inadequate and that it could be causing some of them harm.

Gerry Rayman, a national clinical lead for inpatient diabetes and head of the diabetes service at Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, said on Radio 4’s You and Yours programme that because many hospitals were lacking a specialist diabetes nurse and with the increasing number of hospital patients suffering from the metabolic condition, this was becoming a problem.

Dr Rayman commented "We know that one in three hospitals don't have a specialist diabetes nurse, which is really quite alarming when we know that one in six people in hospital have diabetes." He added "Unfortunately, many people in hospital with diabetes do come to harm as a result of, I'm afraid to say, inadequate care in hospital.

However, the Department of Health also claimed that they were trying to improve care standards, arguing "That is why the National Diabetes Inpatient Audit reviews diabetes management in hospital each year and feeds results back to individual hospitals to take appropriate action."

Barbara Young, The chief executive of the national charity Diabetes UK, said "The tragedy is that for many people with diabetes, complications could have been avoided if the health checks were in place to spot any signs and if the appropriate care and treatment were applied."
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