This award recognises the talent and effectiveness of teams working in diabetes within the NHS. Entries were invited from any team of healthcare professionals and may include single or cross-functional groups.
Winner
Lakeside Diabetes Team by NHS South East London, Bexley Business Support Unit
This team, based in one of Bexley’s most deprived communities, has been providing high-quality, innovative, patient-centred services from the practice and achieved impressive results. GP lead Dr Maryam Tahmassebi set out to create a unifi ed and comprehensive taskforce of professionals who could care for, treat and empower Type 2 diabetes patients to improve their health and wellbeing against the key objectives of improving essential care; providing structured patient education and cohesive follow-up programmes; and engaging with Bexley’s diabetes practice development team and patient groups.
Joint second place
Portsmouth Diabetes Team by Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust
The Portsmouth Diabetes team found an increase in the secondary diagnosis of diabetes and developed a proactive in-patient project targeting emergency, vascular surgery, elderly and renal patients, providing dedicated nurse and medical time each day. Nursing staff also received training to improve their knowledge of diabetes care and minimise drug errors. The project has been a success, leading to a reduction in readmissions, an improvement in length of stay and increased patient and staff satisfaction.
Joint second place
Diabetes Specialist Team by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
Following an unsatisfactory National Inpatient survey, the RBFT implemented the NHS Institute for Improvement and Innovations ThinkGlucose programme. After just one year of hard work from four dedicated work streams, referrals to the diabetes specialist team have increased, length of stay has reduced by one day, and patients feel that their diabetes care while in hospital has improved since their last admission. These changes have been demonstrated by an overall improvement in the National in-patient audit.
Finalists
Diabetes Outreach Team, ThinkGlucose by Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust
The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust launched the ThinkGlucose project with the aims of increasing awareness of diabetes in in-patients, reducing prescription errors and improving patient care. The programme has achieved these aims with a reduction in insulin prescription errors, a drop in inappropriate referral, and an improvement in hypoglycaemia management. ThinkGlucose has been a clear success, resulting in improved outcomes for various diabetes-related endpoints.
