The Service

The original Diabetes 10 Point Training Programme for adult inpatient staff was developed in 2014 by Diabetes Nurse Consultant Ruth Miller in response to concerns about inpatient safety and inadequate access to basic diabetes training for frontline staff.  

As stated by Diabetes UK in the document ‘Making hospitals safe for people with diabetes’, a knowledgeable workforce which understands diabetes is crucial to patient safety. With some of the most complex inpatient diabetes care delivered by non-specialists, ensuring that all staff have access to diabetes training helps ensure that diabetes care can be safely delivered by non-specialists.

The Diabetes 10 Point Training Programme has now been adapted to other areas in health and social care settings and these new versions of the programme have been accessed by more than 3,000 frontline staff in North West London and beyond.  

Prior to the onset of the COVID19 pandemic, 10 point training was rolled out via a blended approach of centrally-delivered face-to-face sessions and ‘train the trainer’ upskilling (training Clinical Practice Educator nurses to deliver the training to their own teams). 

National Diabetes Inpatient Audit data (in 2019) from one of the Trusts in NW London indicates that the training has strongly contributed to improvements in patient safety:

• Medication errors, from 38.3% to 7.3%

• Prescription errors, from 16.0% to 2.7%  

• Glucose management errors, from 24.7% to 5.3% 

• Insulin errors, from 24.7% to 4.7%

• Severe hypoglycaemia, from 10.4% to 4.2% 

In addition, attendees completed pre and post-training self-reported confidence questionnaires with results demonstrating marked improvement in their confidence to manage inpatient diabetes:

 

VID

Response to Covid

In March 2020, and in response to the COVID19 pandemic, the delivery of all programmes changed from a largely face-to-face approach to digital platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

Since this time training has been delivered to nearly 700 staff using online platforms. 

The team recognised that digital delivery presented an opportunity to extend the reach of the programme to potentially thousands of staff, with the development of an online version of the programmes. As a result, the digitalisation of 4 key workstreams was commenced. 

This August sees the launch of the following on a digital e-learning platform:

• Diabetes 10 Point Training for Inpatient Staff

• Diabetes 10 Point Training for Community and Inpatient Mental Health Staff

• Diabetes 10 Point Training for Community Nursing Teams

• Diabetes 10 Point Training for Adult Social Care Workers (care home and home care workers).

Summary

Diabetes 10 Point Training Programmes are translatable across health and social care settings with an ability to reach staff at scale to effectively address universal challenges of inadequate diabetes-specific training and the increasing prevalence of diabetes.

The programmes will be Royal College of Nursing (RCN) accredited and will take up to 60 minutes to complete online. 

Successes: awards and recognition

2014: Virtual College Lean Healthcare Academy Award for ‘Improvement of Services Through Development and Training’

2016: Quality in Care: Highly Commended – ‘Diabetes Team Initiative of the year’ 

2018: RCNI finalist in the ‘Innovations in Your Specialty’ category

2018: HSJ finalist – ‘Patient Safety and Education Award’

2018: Rowan Hillson Inpatient Safety Award winner

2019: World Psychiatry Congress poster presentation

2021: Diabetes UK presentation 

2021: ADA poster presentation 

Comments 

Diabetes Nurse Consultant Ruth Miller said: “A knowledgeable workforce is fundamental to patient safety and good care and as the prevalence of diabetes spirals in hospitals, mental health settings, care homes and in the community, it is vitally important that all frontline staff across health and social care can access concise diabetes training that is highly relevant to their work setting and job role.”  

Feedback from staff has been extremely positive. The training was described as ‘vital’ by one staff nurse, particularly around the management of high and low blood glucose. Staff also commented that it helped their confidence when dealing with people with diabetes; raised awareness on hospital wards; and helped them to understand how to treat someone experiencing hypoglycaemia.