New report: Making hospitals safe for people with diabetes
We want every stay in hospital for someone with diabetes to be as safe as possible. At the moment it's not. Our new report has recommendations for all hospitals to make sure people with diabetes get the care they need and deserve.
"I dread the thought of having to be an inpatient again. Having diabetes adds enormously to the anxiety of being in hospital."
Making hospitals safe for people with diabetes report
Our vision is to create a world where diabetes can do no harm. So it’s not acceptable that people with diabetes don’t feel safe in a hospital. Currently, one in six hospital beds are occupied by someone with diabetes and by 2030 it is predicted this will rise to one in four. In hospital, people with diabetes have high infection rates, longer lengths of stay and increased mortality. In 2017, 260,000 people with diabetes experienced a medication error which could have resulted in serious harm or even death, and 58,000 an episode of severe hypoglycaemia.
Our "Making hospitals safe for people with diabetes" report (PDF, 1.1MB) has been created by an alliance of groups and individuals striving to improve hospital care for people with diabetes. Through engagement with diabetes inpatient teams, ward staff, people with diabetes and hospital management means we now understand the depth of the challenges facing the NHS in improving diabetes inpatient care. For our report, we visited hospitals across the country and we found out what works.
For people with diabetes to be safe in hospital we need:
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Our report outlines these points in more detail and sets out recommendations for what needs to be in place in all acute hospitals across England to make sure every stay for someone with diabetes is safe. These recommendations are based on models from across the UK which have been shown to improve care.
Simple things you can do now to improve care for people with diabetes in hospital:
- See our Shared Practice Library to learn what other hospitals across the UK are doing to improve care.
- Access your hospital's data for diabetes inpatient care through the National Diabetes Inpatient Audit. Use this data to assess your service currently and to define your priorities for improvement.
- Make sure the Joint British Diabetes Society guidelines are in place and being used.
- Download and use our information prescriptions to give people with diabetes the information they need to understand and improve their health targets.
- Promote or apply to our Clinical Champions and Tomorrow's Leaders leadership programmes.
- Watch and share our videos of Lesley and Phil talking about their experience of having diabetes in hospital
- Use our Inpatient Information Sheet (PDF, 70KB)
Supported by a grant from Sanofi. This report/website is operated independently and Sanofi has no editorial control over its contents.
