North Mid staff recognised for ‘digital innovation’ that helps treat diabetes in children
The paediatric diabetes team at North Mid created a service which ensures diabetes management technology is accessible for young patients
The paediatric diabetes team at North Middlesex University Hospital are celebrating after they won a prize at the Royal College of Nursing’s annual awards ceremony.
The North Mid staff were recognised at the RCN Nursing Awards for ‘digital innovation’ with their service that ensures that diabetes management technology is accessible for young patients. The team received the accolade at a ceremony on 10th November at Liverpool Cathedral.
The paediatric diabetes team sought to address health inequalities experienced by those without digital skills or hardware by sourcing laptops and training to increase the number of patients accessing insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices.
The service has allowed a greater number of patients to carry out CGM monitoring at home and download data from the sensors and insulin pumps provided. This has resulted in improved diabetic control.
In bringing in the initiative, the nursing team built a strong relationship with the medicines management team and increased awareness of the importance of technology in diabetes management. They also sensitively identified service users, who were digitally excluded because of financial constraints, to direct sourcing of laptops and other technology.
Davina Jean-Jacques, paediatric specialist nurse at North Mid, said: “Before the initiative, patients and their families were not confident in managing their diabetes, and relied on the nursing and medical team to review their needs. Now families feel empowered to manage their child’s diabetes from home. This allows families to work and earn a salary, to be able to attend school, and have a more “normal” life.”
She added: “The team feels elated to have won this award. We hope it inspires more specialist teams to continue to advocate for their patients and inspire confidence that those living in areas of health and social inequalities have the same outcomes as those in other parts of the UK.”
RCN fellow Joanne Bosanquet, chief executive of the Foundation of Nursing Studies and chair of the awards judging panel, said: “We were blown away by the utter brilliance of all our nominees and finalists in the digital innovation category. But our winners’ great improvement work to close the gap between glycaemic control and health inequalities in paediatric diabetes care really stood out.
“It is scalable and doesn’t just illustrate but addresses the challenge of digital inequality. The team has overcome many challenges but has shown such leadership in this field and the feedback from families show how life changing this initiative has been.”
Michael Manuccia, CEO of award sponsor FuturU, added: “We were incredibly impressed by the number of high quality entries in the digital innovation category this year. It was inspiring to read about nurses and frontline teams who are coming up with new and better ways to empower their colleagues and the people they care for.”
Another nurse-led project from North Mid was also a finalist in this year’s RCN Awards. The project is aimed at improving the retention of experienced paediatric nursing staff and recruitment of student nurses by recognising and addressing the emotional and mental ‘cost’ on nursing staff of caring for babies, children and young people, worsened by the unprecedented impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.