Graham Stuart MP: successful diabetes roundtable provides good basis to scrutinise quality of care for East Riding patients

Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has said the special summit on diabetes he organised in his constituency with Diabetes UK has helped equip him better to scrutinise the quality of care being delivered to patients in the East Riding.

Attendees at the summit included leading consultants, doctors, representatives of the Hull and East Riding Clinical Commissioning Groups and patients drawn from across the area.

The summit identified a number of areas where care could be improved, including:

better information for patients so that they know what treatment they should expect and how to monitor risk;

better training for the nurse practitioners and GPs involved in primary care;

better communications between hospitals and community services; and

more effective workforce planning to ensure there are not gaps in care when key personnel retire.

East Riding CCG is taking a lead and has arranged to hold a follow up meeting with Diabetes UK on 15 March.

Both Hull and East Riding CCGs, working together with clinicians at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust, have also submitted a joint funding application to the NHS Diabetes Treatment and Care Programme 2017-18.

The priorities of the application are to support:

increased achievement of NICE recommended treatment targets;

increasing attendance at diabetes education; and

reducing amputations by increasing the availability of multidisciplinary footcare teams with appropriate capacity.

To help monitor improvement Graham will now receive information from the NHS Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Networks regarding their analysis of the root cause of amputations over the course of the next year.  He will also meet nurse practitioners in local GP practices to discuss their work caring for patients first-hand.

Graham said, “Diabetes is a serious condition affecting over 18,000 people in the East Riding and it’s encouraging to see action being taken to improve care, including our local CCGs bidding for dedicated funding.  Diabetes sufferers need regular foot checks to ensure they are not suffering from ulcers, which can worsen to the point where amputation is the only option. Nurses and GPs also need to make prompt referrals to specialists if a patient’s feet are in poor condition.

“The summit has bolstered my understanding of these challenges and I’m very grateful to everyone who shared their expertise – some really useful plans have emerged from our meeting and it has given me a good platform from which to continue to scrutinise the quality of care being offered to my constituents.  It is likely a follow up summit will be held in 2018 to assess progress.”

Lionel Curtis of the Hull and District Diabetes Group said, “We’re grateful to Graham for his endeavours organising the summit into amputations in Hull and the East Riding.  As a result of the summit I’ve been interviewed for programmes on the BBC which gave me the opportunity to share information about diabetes and amputations in this area with viewers.  I’ve had calls from interested people already and I hope that all the good work done by Graham and the fantastic medical experts in our area will deliver progress.”