Download: Summary Success Story (PDF 298KB) / Full Success Story (PDF 234KB)

The challenge:  

NHS Bedfordshire wanted to move from a diabetes service delivered mainly in secondary care, to one where more care is delivered in primary care, in the context of an integrated model of care for diabetes. This meant that primary care healthcare professionals needed to be up-skilled to become competent at appropriate levels for the care they would need to deliver. It was clear that an education programme was needed to support the up-skilling.

The aim:

The aim of the education programme is to significantly improve the knowledge and skills of all relevant healthcare professionals to enable them to manage diabetes care within a primary care setting in the context of the integrated model of care.

What did they do?

A multidisciplinary group, the Diabetes Education Working Group (DEWG), was set up to develop and oversee the delivery of an education programme. The group undertook a skills audit of primary care professionals and identified training and professional development needs. A training programme that will meet the needs of HCPs expected to deliver care at level 1 and 2 was formulated. They enlisted carefully selected pharmaceutical companies to provide financial assistance as well as expert input on training for specific products. The ability of the pharmaceutical companies to deliver certain elements of this training was assessed using a scoring criteria. Additionally, funding was secured from the companies and NHS Bedfordshire to pay for 30 diploma places on an Open University course, Diabetes as a Cardiovascular Disease.

What happened?

In February 2011,a panel of general practitioners, nurse specialists, and consultants will agree an accredited education programme provided by local education establishments and the selected pharmaceutical companies and the training will be rolled out.  It is expected that up-skilling the healthcare professionals will enable the integrated service model to not only function, but to deliver high quality care; whilst providing personal and professional development for its staff. Additionally benefits expected for patients include active involvement in decisions about their care, services are built around the needs of individuals, earlier diagnosis leading to better control and reduction in complications, care provided closer to the patient’s home or work and equity of access to services. Anticipated benefits to the healthcare system include a care pathway that maximises the use of secondary care expertise to focus on complex cases, professional development and staff satisfaction, reduction in emergency admissions, reduction in lengths of stay and outpatient attendances, increased capacity and capability to meet the needs of increasing numbers of patients with diabetes, improved quality assurance and improved cost effectiveness. Finally, it is anticipated that the new integrated model of care will result in cost savings from fewer outpaitnet appointments in secondary care and fewer admissions. 

Key outcomes

Appendices

• Appendix A - guidance to pharmaceutical companies (PDF 13KB)
• Appendix B - Diabetes levels of care (PDF 10KB)
• Appendix C - Detailed competencies for each level of care (PDF 89KB)

These appendices are supplied by the trust from which the success story originates. If you use content from the documents, please ensure you appropriately reference them in the normal style used by your publication/organisation.