Endocrine Abstracts

In collaboration with local borough councils and the League of Diabetes and in response to severe staff shortages, the Southern Health & Social Care Trust (SHSCT), Northern Ireland, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) team ran age banded group clinics at local Leisure centres. Due to unexpected and challenging staffing issues within the T1D team we had to think outside the box as to how we would deliver ‘clinic’ appointments in a timely manner to our children and young people in adherence with NICE guidelines.

The aim of the alternate clinic model was twofold:

• To bring our children, young people and their families together outside of the usual hospital environment affording invaluable opportunities for peer support and to meet other families living with T1D. • To provide an educational, holistic and inspirational appointment.The ‘Diathlete’, Gavin Griffiths delivered an inspirational and empowering talk at each group session. He also ran workshops with the young people. Feedback from attendees found these sessions extremely powerful and encouraging. We included short interactive sessions covering sick day rules and hypoglycaemia management. A person living with T1D has multiple appointments. To help reduce appointment burden we invited our local podiatry and regional retinal screening services. Our SHSCT psychology team provided an overview of the support they can offer on a one-one basis and via group sessions available for not only those living with T1D but also for their siblings and families. Charitable organisations provided an overview of the events/projects taking place for our children and young people living with T1D in Northern Ireland and further afield. Due to the evolving technological advances in the management of T1D we felt it imperative to include diabetes technology representatives. This allowed our service users to engage directly with the company representatives. Feedback was obtained from service users, their parents /carers and from professionals attending the sessions. This was overwhelmingly positive. It is our intention to run these age banded group sessions annually replacing 1 standard clinic appointment per year with this model. Part of the success of these sessions was giving families the opportunity to meet and share experiences.