The challenge

NHS Diabetes sponsored the production of a survey by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in March in 2009 – 'Growing up with Diabetes: children and young people with diabetes in England' (PDF 2MB) – established there were 22,783 children and young people (0–17 years) with diabetes in England. Of this total, 97% had Type 1 diabetes, 1.5% had Type 2 diabetes and 1.5% had other types of diabetes.

How is NHS Diabetes supporting you?

NHS Diabetes is driving forward improvements in paediatric diabetes which are making a real difference to the care received by children and young people. To build on our successes we have launched a national paediatric network, which will be comprised of our 10 regional paediatric diabetes networks. The network will bring together best practice, up-to-date guidance and tools and aims to reduce unacceptable variation.

A summary of our key achievement includes:

• Leading moves to establish paediatric diabetes outpatient care as a clinical practice with a proper funding mechanism are being made. A Best Practice Tariff will be anticipated for 2012/13.
• Launching regional paediatric networks which have been responsible for achieving nationally agreed network outcomes, including: 100% submission to the National Diabetes Audit, organising and the implementation of a regional register, increase stakeholder engagement, standardisation of a service specification and preparation for the Best Practice Tariff.
• Rolling out Paediatric Networks Coordinators to support the regional diabetes networks.
• Greatly improving our knowledge of how many children are affected by diabetes through the first audit of children with diabetes in England. The audit, carried out in 2009, revealed that 23,000 children had diabetes - 'Growing up with Diabetes: children and young people with diabetes in England' (PDF 2MB).
• A commissioning guide (PDF 2MB) for diabetes and children and young people has been published by NHS Diabetes. The guide includes an intervention map detailing all of the elements needed for the service as well as a contracting framework and service specification template. It supports our commissioning approach which offers a step-by-step guide in how to deliver high quality, efficient and cost effective diabetes services.
• Developing a new model of care for children and young people with Type 1 diabetes through 'Join Us on Our Journey'.