Endocrine Abstracts

Technological advances in the management of TIDM are making a significant impact on optimising blood sugar level control and improving quality of life for children with diabetes. Locally, the impact of technological advances, rising caseload and static numbers of Paediatric Diabetes Specialist Nurses (PDSNs) has led to a significant reduction in the ‘time to care’ as large amounts of clinic time was consumed by connections to technology and downloading by the diabetes team. We led a QI project looking at the impact of a healthcare assistant (HCA) in supporting the diabetes team and our families with the technology associated with their care. The HCA was able to support 484 new connections to technology and provide support for families in clinic, over the phone and take on numerous other administrative tasks. We demonstrated they released 23% of local total PDSN clinical hours; 274 hours of PDSN time over 10.5 weeks (1357 hours/year,) with a cost saving of £11,479/year compared to these tasks being managed by a Band 6 Specialist nurse. Both qualitative and quantitative feedback from CYP and their families was overwhelmingly positive; valuing the time the HCA could spend with them and stating gains in confidence with technology and preventing wasted time in clinic or repeat appointments. Feedback from the existing Diabetes consultants and PDSNs showed they felt they were able to focus their time better on direct clinical care and therefore able to optimise clinical decision making and clinics ran more efficiently. The HCA enjoyed their role and felt they were able to dedicate time to understanding the new advances in technology to support both the diabetes team and the CYP and their families. The success of the pilot has allowed us to receive ongoing funding for this role and we continue to see successes in this project on a daily basis.