People experiencing homelessness and living with diabetes are at a higher risk of serious complications or even death.
This is because of the difficulties managing their condition while homeless, including the daily challenges of getting access to healthy food and health care.
People experiencing homelessness and living with diabetes:
- Have a higher risk of serious complications or death.
- Face barriers to healthcare, including limited access and inadequate nutrition.
- May have co-occurring mental health and addiction challenges.
- May not have access to healthcare making it difficult to manage their diabetes.
- Can have other health conditions which can make it harder to manage their diabetes.
- Can have difficulty accessing healthy food, leading to blood sugar levels that are not in the target range.
- Can face practical barriers such as storing insulin or preparing recommended foods.
Support and resources to help improve care
There is support and resources which is available for healthcare professionals, to enable them to provide better outcomes for people experiencing homelessness while living with diabetes.
Housing First
This approach provides immediate access to permanent housing, which can improve housing stability and healthcare behaviours.
Diet guides
Produced by a dietician and clinical psychologist, these diet guides are for people with diabetes and are homeless or are living in unstable accommodation.
Pathway charity
With funding from the Burdett Trust for Nursing and with our support, Samantha Dorney-Smith, a nurse from the Pathway charity, led a national partnership project from April 2023 to June 2024 to look at what could be done to help.
The project saw participation from specialists including health and diabetes nurses, allied professionals, and those with lived experience. You can read more about this work on improving care for people experiencing homelessness with diabetes.
The outputs from the project are freely available and can be accessed here:
- Queen’s Nursing Institute: Provides guidance, including a Homeless and Inclusion Health Programme guidance for nurses and support workers.
- Fairhealth: Offers a free e-learning course for clinical practitioners and support workers.
- Groundswell: Provides information leaflets on living with diabetes and managing diabetes.
Pathway also offers:
- A leaflet focusing on eye health focusing on eye health when you are homeless.
- A comprehensive project report includes insights from the project, survey results, patient interviews, literature reviews and more.
- Tools to enable the inclusion of health and specialist diabetes services practitioners to undertake a local Quality Improvement project.
- Top tips and guidance sheets for nurses and support workers on how to help.
