Healthcare professionals from across the Black Country recently attended a diabetes management event to share and discuss best practice when it comes to supporting people living with type 2 diabetes.
More than 100 healthcare professionals’ working in primary care - including GPs, practice nurses, pharmacy teams and healthcare assistants - attended the event, which took place in June at the Mercure Birmingham Hotel in West Bromwich. Attendees were also given the option to join the event virtually via Microsoft Teams.
Hosted by Diabetes UK and the NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB), the event was an opportunity to highlight actionable insights, strategies, and top tips to empower and enable professionals to share methods to manage the annual assessment process and support patients at their practice living with type 2 diabetes, facilitated with a bespoke delegate pack of resources.
The event also focused on the three treatment targets for people living with diabetes, as set out by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which includes blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose control (also known as HbA1c), and why meeting these targets is important for patient’s health and wellbeing. Amelia Cook, Diabetes Clinical Lead for the Black Country, presented clinical case scenarios and prioritisation strategies to enable primary care teams to take a pro-active approach in their own PCNs.
Attendees also took part in a series of workshops hosted by the Black Country ICBs Sandwell Medicines Management team, focusing on various aspects of diabetes care including blood pressure management, glucose monitoring, cholesterol, and obesity. A practical workstation which conducted foot checks was also hosted by the podiatry teams from Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust and Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. There was stand presence from providers of services that allowed primary care teams to discuss challenges and queries in relation to referral processes and trouble shoot any strategical barriers.
Gurpreet Kaur, Diabetes Medicines Optimisation Lead for the Black Country ICB, said: “Diabetes is a long-term and progressive condition that can potentially have damaging effects on health. Many of these complications can be prevented or delayed.
“The session highlighted actionable insights, strategies, and top tips to empower and enable healthcare professionals from across the Black Country to share and consider methods to manage the annual assessment process in practice and to support people living with diabetes in their practice.
“The session provided professionals with the opportunity to become familiar with the current pathways, processes and services that can be utilised by primary care to support and signpost people living with diabetes. It was also great to discuss and share best practice collaboratively, to help us achieve better health and wellbeing outcomes for local people.
“It was brilliant to see so many people get involved in the event, both in-person and virtually, and work collaboratively together to help achieve our shared goal of delivering good diabetes care.”
Peter Shorrick, Head of Midlands & East of England at Diabetes UK, said: “Well done to the Black Country ICB and Diabetes UK for organising and delivering a fantastic successful event.
“In all of the 17 Integrated Care System’s we cover across the region, there has been nothing as comprehensive and inclusive in what was delivered for healthcare professionals during the session.”
Dr Sam Muthuveloe, local GP in Sandwell, attended the event and said: “It was great to network and see the enthusiasm there is across the ICB to deliver good diabetes care. We need to organise more workshops in future to keep up the momentum.”
Amelia Cook, Diabetes Clinical Lead for the NHS Black Country Integrated Care System, said: “It was great to see so many people at our diabetes event – it’s been far too long since we hosted a face-to-face event. The buzz and atmosphere in the room was a testament to the Healthcare Professional's needs and the legacy from this training will translate to improved patient outcomes in primary care. The bespoke takeaway packs were brilliantly collated by Gurpreet, and it was fantastic to have Diabetes UK supporting this much-needed event.”
