Last Wednesday The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Diabetes launched its new report ‘Levelling up: Tackling Variation in Diabetes Care’ at an event held at the House of Commons.
The All Party parliamentary group describes itself as ‘A nonpartisan cross-party interest group of UK parliamentarians who have a shared interest of raising the profile of diabetes, its prevention and improving the quality of treatment and care for people living with diabetes.’ Attendees of the evening were welcomed by the chairman of the APPG Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP who urged for a “fundamental and irreversible policy shift” and asserted the need for a revolution of thinking around diabetes care. His introduction was followed by speakers Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, patient voice Lauren Proctor and diabetes specialist nurse Ruth Miller.
Conclusions within the report were reached after a series of meetings held over the last year in which the APPG has heard from people living with diabetes as well as health care professionals and leading Clinical Commissioning Groups. They have provided testimonials relating to inconsistent quality for the treatment of diabetes and associated medical needs. Examples were put forward concerning good and bad practice and areas in need of improvement. The report was researched and funded by charities Diabetes UK and JDRF.
In the lead up to the publication of ‘Levelling up’ the government has announced the provision of approximately £40million per year to be used towards the improvement of nationwide care for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. This will be extremely useful in facilitating implementation of the report’s recommendations and improving nationwide diabetes services. DWED particularly hopes that in light of this financial boost, standards of psychological support will be moved to further to the front of the agenda.
There are three key areas to the report. These are ‘high-quality conversations with the right healthcare professionals’, ‘technology’, and ‘support for living with diabetes’ which focuses on structured education most of all while briefly touching on the lack of consideration for emotional wellbeing. Each section presents specific evidence with regards to gaps in the variation of care services and explores ‘What the NHS is doing’ successfully in some areas of the country. The aim is to use these models as a framework from which to learn from, build upon and implement across the board to reduce the current NHS postcode lottery.
‘Levelling up: Tackling Variations in Diabetes Care’ can be downloaded from the APPG website. Alternatively, for a full breakdown of and review of the report and how it may be of use to someone with diabetes alongside an eating disorder, DWED provides a comprehensive document as part of Novembers premium level membership package. To subscribe for just £3 per month please do so via: http://dwed.org.uk/membership-options.
By Claire Kearns