We are inviting colleagues to submit entries to this competition to find the best joint pharmacy and diabetes team initiative to improve insulin and prescribing safety in hospital.

On 11/12/16, the Scottish Government announced an additional £10 million funding for Type 1 diabetes. The funding is to increase pump provision over the next 5 years and provide CGM to priority groups of patients including those with severe hypoglycaemia.
The Scottish Government has also published its draft budget for 2017-18. In this they commit to a new national outcome for type 2 diabetes and announce the intention to consult on a new strategy on diet and obesity.

As mentioned in Rob Gregory’s excellent Christmas Chair’s bulletin (See HERE), the manufacturers of Lucozade have recently given notice of their intentions to reduce its glucose content. The timing coincides with national plans for a sugar tax and with plans for reformulation around implementation of the Childhood Obesity Plan. This will therefore require a different volume when Lucozade is used for oral glucose tolerance testing  (OGTT).

The next round of applications by NHS Trusts for Chief Registrars is open.  Please encourage your trusts to bid, and for your extremely talented SpRs to apply for such posts!  Click on the link HERE for all the information you need

The wait is over!  NHS England has advised that the Diabetes Call to Bid has now been published. The closing date for bids is 18 January.  Note there is a new requirement to those previously advised, for bids to be submitted via STPs. See HERE for more information

By popular demand herewith my festive bulletin in the form of an Advent calendar that you can read a day at a time or open all the windows at once.  No treats behind each paragraph, just the warm yule glow of having been kept informed.

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• Bulletin
• Update

The Diabetes UK Diabetes Specialist Nurse survey was launched in March 2016 to help us gain an understanding of the state of diabetes specialist nursing in 2016 and explore what change is needed to secure a sustainable DSN workforce. The survey has been funded by Novo Nordisk. The results are now available and the headlines are as follows:

Good preparation for pregnancy in women with diabetes is well recognised to improve outcomes for mother and baby. So it is with some concern that we read in the recent National Diabetes in Pregnancy (NPID) report 2015 that only 46% of women with Type 1 and 23% with Type 2 were even taking recommended 5mg folic acid prior to conception. Rather fewer had good glycaemic control by current recommended targets, just 16% of Type 1 and 38% of women with Type 2 diabetes.

ABCD has produced a position statement on the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis associated with the use of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors. The key messages are shown below:

The EASD in Munich was notable for two Endobarrier related events. There was a presentation of data on well over 200 patients from the German Endobarrier registry which confirmed the efficacy of this novel treatment for type 2 diabetes and obesity.