The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has given a positive boost to insulin pumps . In cases when people with diabetes are not agreeing with conventional insulin injections, pumps may be prescribed. The news is good for people with type 1 diabetes .
Some people with type 1 diabetes find it very uncomfortable to administer insulin injections in the normal way. As many as 16,000 people in the UK have type 1 diabetes, and this figure is climbing all the time. Diabetes UK figures this month indicate that over 3,000 children were admitted to hospital with type 1 diabetes last year.
Previously, NICE were reluctant to prescribe insulin pumps. One diabetologist, Dr. Fiona Campbell, reportedly commented: “Using an insulin pump has made good control considerably easier to achieve. Insulin pump therapy should be considered a safe and effective alternative to multiple injections of insulin and can be started even as early as the point of diagnosis if this is clinically indicated. The publication of the new NICE guidelines will greatly support clinicians in their decisions to use insulin pumps to help patients manage their diabetes and we should expect to see insulin pump use in paediatric routine care to increase dramatically.”

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