I did my nursing training in London back in the day when black cab drivers still stopped to give nurses free rides!

We were trained in the ancient old buildings at St Mary's in Paddington and one of my lasting memories was having a staff medical in the same room that Alexander Fleming, a scientist working on the influenza virus accidentally discovered antibiotics on 28th September 1928.

During my career I have worked both abroad and, in the UK, National Health Service in different settings in care homes, as a community nurse and as a practice nurse in a GP practice and then as a diabetes specialist nurse in a London hospital. 

Diabetes first became my big passion when I joined a doctor’s surgery as a practice nurse in the neighbourhood where I was living at the time.  I was asked to help run a busy diabetes clinic because I had just finished a diabetes course at university.

Despite the diabetes course, I felt that I had just started learning about diabetes and I worried that this would be a steep learning curve!

It didn’t take me long before I realised that the most important lessons about diabetes came from people living with diabetes and their families rather than from the textbooks I read.

As a practice nurse, I felt incredibly privileged as I got to know patients well and started to comprehend what it was like to live with diabetes and the impact this had on the individual, the family and our wider community.

In 2003 I started working as a diabetes specialist nurse at a London hospital and was later appointed as Diabetes Clinical Lead in the same hospital.

As my diabetes experience increased I saw that patients coming to the diabetes clinic often expected to be told off by clinical staff.

This really surprised and saddened me that people living with diabetes felt their diabetes was somehow their fault. They were to blame when blood glucose levels were too high or too low or when they developed a diabetes-related complication.

Of course, the concept of being “good” or “bad” at diabetes, “compliant” or “non-compliant” are throwbacks of the medical model of care and have no place in modern diabetes clinics.

What is 10 point training?

In the medical model, the patient visited the diabetes clinic and was given instructions by doctors, nurses and dieticians.  If by the next visit, blood glucose was not “good”, the person with diabetes often felt they had failed.

Modern diabetes care is about people with diabetes getting the right information about their condition so that they can self-manage their diabetes effectively.  It is about getting support and help to enable people to feel confident in actively sharing decisions about their care. 

We now understand that diabetes is not an exact science and that there are many conflicting variables and factors that can affect blood glucose levels such as the weather, the food we eat, our hormones, our emotions, our insulin doses and medication and so on.

I think that a major challenge is public ignorance about diabetes.

This is sometimes driven by inaccurate misinformed reporting and social media. Unfortunately, unchallenged stereotypes about people with diabetes will legitimise an ignorant mindset towards diabetes which is incredibly unhelpful.

While I was working as a Diabetes Clinical Lead I developed the Diabetes 10 Point Training Programme for Inpatient staff.  This was because it was clear that all staff in the hospital needed to have a working knowledge of diabetes which was relevant to the area they work in. 

Diabetes 10 point training: People with Diabetes in Hospital from Know Diabetes 

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Six years on and the training has attracted a number of awards and has proved both effective and acceptable to staff. The training is brief, relevant and flexible and it is Royal College of Nursing accredited.

We have now created several more training programmes for care home staff, inpatient and community mental health workers, community support workers, community nurse teams and dental teams and thousands of staff have now been trained.

If you are an organisation from North West London and want to learn more about this free training contact the Know Diabetes team.

Excitingly people living with diabetes have created their own  ‘patient empowerment’ resources for people with diabetes going into hospital, for people living with type 2 diabetes and for the parents or carers of children with type 1 diabetes and these can be found on this website.

 The core number one message of all training programmes is:

Point 1: Listen to the person: they live with their diabetes 365 days a year.

Since 2017 in North West and North Central London and beyond, more than 6000 frontline staff have been trained on one of the Diabetes 10 Point Training programme.

Up until March this year I have spent most of my time in care homes, mental health settings and in hospitals across North West London, working with my amazing frontline colleagues to help support the training. 

Diabetes 10 point training: Mental Health for People with Type 2 Diabetes from Know Diabetes

I have been lucky to meet and get to know so many committed, dynamic and inspirational frontline staff. 

However, as we all know COVID-19 has forced all of us to change the way in which we both work and live.  Sadly I have had to pause all my visits and along with the rest of the world, I have had to embrace a completely new way of working!

The speed of change and innovation in the NHS is normally painfully slow but during this crisis, we have had to adapt quickly to ensure that we can continue our work.  During the COVID-19 crisis, the need to train staff and empower people living with diabetes is as important as ever.

I am now organising and running training sessions via video links with frontline staff and for people living with diabetes.  I would love to hear from you if you are interested in learning more.