I handed over the reins to Dinesh Nagi at a very enjoyable and successful ABCD meeting at the Titanic Centre in Belfast. Thank you to Russell Drummond and John Lindsay for the excellent programme. Patrick Bell's welcome address was both amusing and thought-provoking on a theme of reconciliation. He confessed to never having joined ABCD, but declared he would do so if he were starting his career today!
We met after the second ABCD IPN-UK meeting organised by Emma Wilmot and the IPN-UK committee. Stephen Ponder of Sugar Surfing fame revealed how he controls his own blood glucose, and I can confirm it worked for the conference dinner.
I thought I should update members about a few things that have arisen since my last chair's bulletin.
National Diabetes Audit
I represented ABCD at the NDA Partnership Board meeting on 28th April. It was encouraging in that the participation rate by GP practices had seen a dramatic rise thanks to the efforts of NDA staff and CCGs. The change in the legal status of the NDA from April 2017 is significant. Many, but not all, of your trusts submit data for the NDA secondary care audit. Participation in the next audit will be mandated for secondary care providers so I would urge those members working in England and Wales to ensure their IT departments are able to submit the 2016-17 data in the format required. Three briefing teleconferences have been arranged in the first week of June. The provisional window for uploading the data is 12 June – 21 July, although this might slip owing to the election. See HERE to download a newsletter that explains all this.
NaDIA will run in a familiar form in September 2018, but will be transformed into an audit of 'continuous harms' thereafter. There is particular interest in the handful of trusts that have not participated in NaDIA to date. An Insulin Pump Spotlight Audit will run in 2018, and I am keen to broaden its remit to include Type 1 as well as pump services.
An outlier policy is being developed that will pragmatically see secondary care diabetes teams assessed on the core Type 1 diabetes processes and outcomes data, while primary care will be assessed on the Type 2 diabetes data. Outliers falling more than 2 SD from the mean will trigger an 'alert', and those more than 3 SD from the mean will trigger an alert.
There is a determination to see the data used to drive quality improvement, and a resource pack has been produced to help diabetes teams undertake QI projects. Please look out for this.
Driving legislation
ABCD responded to a consultation on proposed changes to the law on driving and diabetes due to be enacted for January 2018. I am very grateful to members who took the trouble to contribute their opinions that have been incorporated into the response, which can be seen HERE.
Launch of the ABCD Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Collaborative – UK (T1DCC-UK)
This ABCD-hosted initiative to drive up standards of care for people with Type 1 diabetes is ready to start. We will be sending a link to pages on the ABCD website imminently. When you receive this, please go to the page and sign up as a member of the collaborative free of charge, and encourage other members of your multi-disciplinary team to do so. The hope is that every department will have a clinical lead for Type 1 diabetes; this can be any health care professional, not necessarily a medic. We will send information to clinical leads about service audits, and we hope to have a snapshot of what is provided for people with Type 1 diabetes across the UK before an NDA audit of Type 1 and Insulin Pump Services in 2018 (vide supra).
Based in or around Bristol, Leeds and Manchester?
Don't miss out on your opportunity to attend the ABCD Clinical and Commissioning News-Live Event on 6th July. Join us for a day of state-of-the-art updates following the ADA Scientific sessions, showcasing innovative practice and commissioning, and the chance to meet in locality groups with your commissioners.
For more information and programme information click HERE. To register online click HERE
And finally....
Some of you will be pleased to know this is my last bulletin. The next one will come from Dinesh Nagi, and I wish him a successful term as Chair. My official thanks are on record in my report for the 2017 AGM.
Rob Gregory
Leicester
June 2017
