Patients talk about Diabetes Care

The aim of the work with the South London HIN, is to look at the particular learning that can come from patient stories.  Now that sites are starting to generate stories its time to use these stories to start conversations about diabetes care.  

Congratulations to the volunteers and staff at Kings College Hospital for generating a body of patient feedback about diabetes care.  The volunteers have done a great job in talking to patients about their care and bringing these stories onto the Patient Opinion site.  In all there are now over 50 stories about diabetes care.  A lot of these stories show the overall good care provided on inpatient wards not just for diabetes but for all clinical care.

So here is a  comment from a story about “joined up care”,

The doctors looking after me kept me very well informed of what was going on; referring me to other specialities when they thought necessary. The King’s diabetes team also gave me a lot of help and support.

For the whole story have a look here

Not all uniformly positive, here is some other feedback from an inpatient:

I am very pleased with the atmosphere and friendliness of the nurses, there is good feedback and information.I was transferred from another hospital as so fond and confident about the care at Kings.I feel the doctors on the ward travel through in an air of notepads and business, maybe do not provide the information or feedback required that the patient would like.

Again for the posting on the site look here

More recently volunteers have targeted the diabetes clinic, and focussed on certain aspects of care for example communication between clinic times:

 Its clear that patient needs vary from one time to another:  “Between clinics nothing much happens, but I don’t necessarily feel that this is a big problem.”  Contrasted with “Instead of having a message on a machine when I phoned the diabetes team it would be better to have a telephone number to ring instead of coming to A&E, when I need urgent treatment which is expensive.”

There was a thumbs up for the use of text and e mail:  “Face to Face is better but I don’t mind telephone or text” and “telephone or text would be fine.”, “the diabetic nurses are really good they are the ones to e mail if you have a problem”.

For patients with diabetes the communication and continuity of care from primary and secondary care is very important:

Great comments from patients include:

Concerns about the GP restricting access to the recommended treatment for diabetes patients are expressed in an imaginative animation “Needs Versus Cost” here

Also comments about the communication to the GP, “Kings does write good letters to your GP and a copy is sent to the patient, given the consultation can be wide ranging, having it in writing does help”  again contrasted with “there is a delay in the clinic letters getting to them so that when I went to the GP for check ups they had not had the letter”.

These are some highlights but there are other really valuable comments and suggestions in the postings.  For example someone who wanted “more information about West African food and carbohydrate values”  and someone else who found the information they were looking for on the Diabetes UK website.

So have a look at all the feedback about diabetes medicine here and send in your own comments about this blog or feedback your own experiences on the Patient Opinion website.