Diabetes-Carmarthenshire

Formerly known as the Carmarthenshire Local Diabetes Advisory Group, the Network is comitted to the following aims:

• Improving diabetes care through an inclusive approach involving patients, carers, local multi-agency health professionals and organisations both local and further afield
• Encouraging people to pursue a healthy lifestyle which minimises the risk of developing diabetes
• increasing public awareness of diabetes and promoting its early detection in those who have developed the condition
• Developing a local stratrgy for diabetes care which takes into account the needs and views local people with diabetes, setting specific objectives and targets to improve the health of peoplew with diabetes
• Developing the service specification required to provide diabetes services which are timely, accessible to all groups in an equitable manner. and which minimise gaps in care
• Developing local evidence based guidelines for the delivery of high quality diabetes care and monitoring and auditing the quality of the service provided against the national standards and targets

 

To achieve these aims the Network will facilitate the following specific developments:

• Engage all local groups and organisations with a stake in diabetes including Carmarthenshire NHS Trust and Carmarthenshire Local Health Board, and network with regional groups and individuals from Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Powys and the Swansea School of Medicine and national organisations including the all Wales Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service, Informing Healthcare and the Welsh Assembly Government.
• Ensure health promotion activity particularly in schools, in areas of social deprivation and in high risk patients already known to healthcare professionals
• Identify those at high risk of developing diabetes, provide appropriate advice and screen for pre-diabetes and frank diabetes.
• Develop a strategy for comprehensive local diabetes services in which most of the care is delivered as close to the patient's home as possible. This will involve working across traditional organisational boundaries.
• Develop diabetes services which provide equity of access for disadvantaged groups including the housebound and those in care homes.
• Ensure that diabetes services are delivered in a timely manner with minimum gaps in the service.
• Provide education and training in diabetes for healthcare professionals including junior hospital doctors and nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, podiatrists and care home staff, and support the application of this training.
• Encourage patients to develop the skills to enable them to manage their own diabetes: deliver structured education programmes for people with diabetes and their carers; develop a patient held diabetes record book; develop a Carmarthenshire Diabetes Website for access to comprehensive information about diabetes and local services, available in both Welsh and English.
• Develop comprehensive evidence based guidelines and pathways for the delivery of diabetes care. Set standards and targets according to national guidelines.
• Ensure the participation of people with diabetes in the planning and implementation of developments in the diabetes service.
• Ensure high quality communication of clinical information about the patients' diabetes between primary and secondary care.
• Monitor the quality of the diabetes services provided and aim for continuous quality improvement. These activities will require the establishment of elecrtonic clinical informarion systems shared between primary and secondary care.