Continuous glucose monitoring and the NHS?

I would be very surprised if any of it was available on the NHS as a permanent prescription.

As I understand it the CGMs don't give a real time reading, there's a gap between it taking the test and delivering the result so it might not work for what you want it to do anyway

Can you not speak to your diabetes team and see if they can hook you up to one for a week? That's what I'm doing in October

They're extremely expensive - £30-35ish for each one and they last up to about 6 days. I used a CGMS for 6 days earlier this year and found it extremely useful for plotting trends. I observed how different foods and differenct activities affected by bg levels.

But the timeliness of the readings make it less than ideal for use as a hypo warning system. I'd generally be into hypo before the readings on the meter suggested it.

Regards,
Sam.

There is no NICE guidelines govering CGM's which would enforce any PCT to provide funding for a patient... To get funding not only do you have to convince a consultant that you have a clinical need for it, you then have to apply to your PCT committee that deals with special individual patient funding...

I think you find that the sensor's are a lot more than £35 a throw, last time I looked they were nearing £80, when you consider that one infusion set for an insulin pump is £10+ and believe me there isn't much to them at all..

Is there a national standard as to which CGMs are available or is it hit and miss depending on the PCT?

I'd be interested to know how long people had to wait for one.
I'd be in the group of people who don't want a pump, but would want to monitor what's happening at night once a year of something.
Borrowing one on the NHS or even hiring one would make more sense than buying one.

I tried every avenue I could think of to secure NHS funding for CGMS and surprise surprise hit brick walls at every turn. I had/have my consultant's support, have applied to my PCT, appealed against their decision to reject my request ... no go.

I HAVE self-funded the Medtronics CGMS for several months but boy - it IS expensive. Not only do you have to build in the cost of sensors to your budget - which I have found I can use for around 9 days on average - you have to budget for the transmitter device too as this only has a 6 month warrany period and can stop working pretty soon after that period. Saying that, I suspect that the life of a transmitter is reduced if you don't use it with a sensor all the time - I have tended to use CGMS during periods of working away from home, maybe for two or three weeks and then nothing for another couple of months.

The last box of 10 sensors cost me £375 and I believe that the transmitters are a similar price but EACH!

Alan

Hi

I've recently had use of a CGM as part of a research project and whilst it was HUGELY useful temporarily to see trends / peaks / troughs it was not accurate enough for me to warrant purchasing. To be able to hire one for periods of time when I've problems or changes in lifestyle would be far more cost effective if there's any way you coud do that??