East of England

Introduction

The East of England Children and Young People’s Diabetes Network was set up in 2010 with the aim of improving and standardising care for all children and young people with type 1 diabetes across the East of England. The network is made up of 13 hospital trusts – comprising 17 units delivering care to circ 3000 children and young people with type 1 diabetes. These trusts all feed into a network steering group who drive forward a robust work programme to ensure that safe and excellent care is delivered in all units across the region. This is achieved through the production of peer reviewed clinical guidelines, the delivery of education on a  all topics pertinent to the management of type 1 diabetes in childhood and the collection and analysis of data on glycaemic outcomes and the completion of the key processes involved in the delivery of excellent diabetes care.

The network strives to achieve strong stakeholder engagement with all health care professionals, voluntary sector organisations and persons involved in providing support to children and young people with type 1 diabetes and their families.

We recognise that patients and their families are key to the achievement of good glycaemic control and long term outcomes and therefore a significant proportion of our work plan is directed at delivering patient engagement events, training and activities.

For the past 7 years we have been running network diabetes adventure camps to encourage children and young people with diabetes to become more independent in the management of their diabetes while trying new and challenging activities and making friends with other CYP with type 1. These are a huge success and are always over subscribed every year. We also run the East of England Diabetes Games every two years. This is a large scale sports and family fun day which allows CYP with diabetes the opportunity to come together, to compete in sporting activities to earn points for their hospital team to earn the title of regional champions. It is an amazing opportunity to demonstrate that type 1 diabetes doesn’t stop them achieving their dreams.

We have 4 parent representatives who sit on our network to ensure that the views and opinions of families with type 1 are at the forefront in all discussions that we have on the improvement of care. These parents also feed into the Families with Diabetes discussions to ensure that the views of the East of England are included in their national discussions.

Over the last 10 years we have made huge leaps and bounds in the improvement of care for CYP in our region and this has been evidenced in the big decreases that we have seen in average HbA1c in all units in the network.

We are excited about the opportunities and developments that are happening in the world of CYP diabetes. We look forward to working with all teams in the region to embed these into our care practises so that we continue to deliver excellent care and ensure that all CYP with diabetes and their families feel that they receive outstanding care and support from everyone involved in their treatment.