18th March 2009
University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust is one
of five NHS Trusts across the country to trial a new toolkit which
looks set to revolutionise diabetes in-patient care across the
health service.
The new toolkit, which aims to help staff improve the experience
of patients admitted to hospital with diabetes, has been developed
by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.
The toolkit follows recent NHS Institute research, which shows
that up to 20% of all hospital in-patients have diabetes,
regardless of the reason for their admission and that these
patients can have longer lengths of stay and may be more likely to
suffer complications such as infection, heart attack and
stroke.
Trialed at the Trusts Bristol Royal Infirmary since September
2008, the ThinkGlucose toolkit has helped frontline staff tackle
these challenges and improve the experience of patients with
diabetes by educating staff on treatment and early diagnosis and
improving their use of insulin.
The NHS Institute worked with University Hospitals Bristol NHS
Foundation Trust and four other NHS Trusts across the country to
test the toolkit. The kit includes a handy, credit card-sized
referral guide; advice on using insulin; audit tools; and staff
prompts such as posters and mousemats.
Initial results using the ThinkGlucose toolkit have shown that
by working with the patients to manage their own condition, less
strain is put on specialist diabetes nurses who are able to focus
more on patients that need most attention. Early results
demonstrate an opportunity to reduce length of stay by around four
days per patient.
Jane Godfrey, Diabetes Nurse Specialist at the Trust, says: Our
trials so far have revealed that the ThinkGlucose toolkit will
improve patient care by helping our staff and patients to work
effectively together to manage diabetes. In particular, we found
the traffic light referral system improved the appropriateness of
referrals.
Sandra Corry, Programme Lead at the NHS Institute said: Were
developing this toolkit to help frontline healthcare professionals
effectively support and manage patients with secondary diagnosis of
diabetes while in hospital. Results so far have been
heartening and show that making small changes to care can make big
differences in patient experience.
The toolkit will be launched to the wider NHS in April 2009,
helping all staff make easy and effective changes to the care they
provide.
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