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New Freestyle Flash monitor.

I think the Libre will be on sale within the next 3 weeks but lets wait for buyer feedback first before trying to get CCGs to fund.


lthough £90 per month seems like a lot of money, quite a lot of people would think nothing of spending £3 per day on buying a sandwich in a super market or bakers. to take to work.
 
I think many of us could afford to fund this device for a short time and with the relatively low upfront costs, that's feasible. I certainly shall.

I'll be speaking to my consultant about it next week and offering to work with him to assess how useful the device is for real people. It's a little annoying to have to pay for it yourself and then share everything you learn with the NHS, but I think that's the best way to drive forward NHS adoption of it. In this case, the relatively low cost makes it possible for many of us to take that approach. Those that can't afford to do that will benefit if those that can afford it manage to drive that adoption.

Smidge
 
Thanks @CarbsRok for posting all that price data. I will summarise it by saying the majority of strips are in the 30p per test area, with a smaller number in the 20p per test area. (And the Codefree standing apart at 14p).

@smidge makes a good point. If £960/year is too steep for a CCG to fund Libre, maybe they could fund just occasional use, since the fixed cost is so low, at £50. If they funded only 2 x 2-week runs a year, once every 6 months, the CGM-like data could be hugely valuable.

If I was a GP and into diabetes I would get one or two of these and lend them to each patient in turn for a 2 week period (with detailed logbook logging). You can't do this with a proper CGM because of the very high cost if a patient loses the device.
 
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Spiker said:
Thanks @CarbsRok for posting all that price data. I will summarise it by saying the majority of strips are in the 30p per test area, with a smaller number in the 20p per test area. (And the Codefree standing apart at 14p).

@smidge makes a good point. If £960/year is too steep for a CCG to fund Libre, maybe they could fund just occasional use, since the fixed cost is so low, at £50. If they funded only 2 x 2-week runs a year, once every 6 months, the CGM-like data could be hugely valuable.

If I was a GP and into diabetes I would get one or two of these and lend them to each patient in turn for a 2 week period (with detailed logbook logging). You can't do this with a proper CGM because of the very high cost if a patient loses the device.
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Thanks Spiker.. Currently with CCG's it appears to be all or nothing.

However, I will try to get some of these ideas taken up with my CCG and hospital.

I had already discussed something similar with my hubby. Would the libre be needed all the time... Quite honestly it shouldn't. I would consider funding myself for two weeks wearing a month (they last 14 days), during that time I could fine tune and for the next two weeks see how the fine tuning works out without one.....

Will be sitting down trying to devise a letter hopefully tomorrow morning as been at GP practice this morning with Patient Satisfaction of GP services surveys on patients attending flu clinics this morn and now have 200 to enter on pc!!!

Will keep folk updated...
 
Julie1471 said:
Been speaking to my DSN about this. And today the teams at Kings College have been given a presentation on it. I asked my DSN if they would accept readings from this system, for correction/bolsus on a pump.

Got an email back today saying Kings would accept readings from the monitor for that reason. But at the moment readings will not be accepted for pre driving ( as it's a new thing) but DVLA and an expert panel are now looking at this.

My DSN has given me prices, as told by the Abbott REP. Start up £138.00 for monitor and 2 sensors, lasting 14 days. And sensor costs are £40.00 pounds each. Then she told me I have a trail of the system on the 25th September, where I will meet up with my DSN and the Abbott rep. YAY :). I can't get over this and I can't wait.
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Julie1471, hey how are you getting on with the freestyle libre? Looking at self funding one myself.

Would be really interested to hear how your getting on.
 
hannahlou said:
Julie1471, hey how are you getting on with the freestyle libre? Looking at self funding one myself.

Would be really interested to hear how your getting on.
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These bits of kit are a revelation. But they are not quite right. I've had 3 sensors either fall off or just fail completely. All well within 14 days. Blood levels are not a million miles from my One Touch Easy monitor.
 
I recently found out about the freestyle insulinx meter. And got excited on how it works, ive an appointment with my DN on wednesday and was going to ask about getting one, has any used or have used onebof these meter. Would like to hear, thanks
 
hughsey said:
I recently found out about the freestyle insulinx meter. And got excited on how it works, ive an appointment with my DN on wednesday and was going to ask about getting one, has any used or have used onebof these meter. Would like to hear, thanks
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I use an Insulinx as I wanted a meter that employed the Freestyle Lite test strips (most accurate according to an independent test report) and it was the only free one on the Abbott website. I don't use the Insulin calculator which is presumably the feature you got excited about, but it appears to be comprehensive if set up correctly.

The strips work with the tiniest blood drop imaginable, aided by the Zip-Wik tabs and there is a LED light that illuminates the sample port and your finger.

The only downside is the touch screen has poor contrast and sometimes difficult to read, although there is a backlight that can improve readability.
 
I also have a free Insulinx as I too like the Freestyle Lite teststrip which only needs a very tiny droplet of blood but the meter's bolus wizard will only work if a bloodtest is done so in that respect its not that good if bolusing for numerous meal dishes unless a bloodtest is done. I now use the Accuchek Expert which will the bolus wizard to work without bg testing and its fairly good with my Animas pump
 
Would like to hear from anyone who has had different readings from sensor. My BM was 3.7 with sensor but 6.7 manually using the freestyle meter, so I was going to take some lucozade! Really disappointed because if it worked or my BM was near enough it would be fantastic.
 
RAElv said:
Would like to hear from anyone who has had different readings from sensor. My BM was 3.7 with sensor but 6.7 manually using the freestyle meter, so I was going to take some lucozade! Really disappointed because if it worked or my BM was near enough it would be fantastic.
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How long have you had the sensor in? It normally takes 24-48 hours for it to settle, so a lot users insert a new sensor about 24 hours before the old one expires and don't activate it until the old one expires. That means its already had 24 hours to settle (tissue to recover from trauma of insertion). I have had difference varying by 3 mmol occasionally in the early days, but recently after allwoing the 24 hours before starting would normally have less than 1.5 mmol difference.

Also worth remembering the delay of approx 15 minutes between the result from the meter and the result from the libre ( Tests from the meter are real time, where as the interstitial fluid the libre checks that's a few minutes to catch up with changes).

If it happens for more than few hours I would contact Abott about it, as if they suspect a faulty sensor they will normally replace it.
 
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