Poor monitoring of Diabetes in care homes

Six out of 10 care homes in England, which have residents with diabetes, fail to provide any training to their staff about the condition, according to a new report from Diabetes UK.

The charity says one care home resident with diabetes is admitted to hospital every 25 minutes because of failings in screening and training.

The report, Diabetes in care homes, found only 23% of homes screen residents for diabetes on admission, and only 28% screen for the condition each year.

This, Diabetes UK says, means as many as 13,500 care home residents in the UK could have undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes and be at increased risk of complications like heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and amputation.

The research was based on Freedom of Information requests and a survey sent to 500 local authority and NHS care homes across England. In addition, 500 private and voluntary run care homes were sent a voluntary survey.

‘Truly alarming’

In a statement, Diabetes UK Chief Executive, Barbara Young, says: “These report findings are an indictment of the standards of diabetes care provided by a worrying number of our country’s care homes. We estimate as many as a quarter of care home residents in England, around 56,000, have diabetes. To discover, therefore, that many homes fail to provide any training to their staff or screen for this common yet serious condition is truly alarming.”

Diabetes UK says basic training for care home staff should include how to identify symptoms such as hypos (hypoglycaemia), monitor blood glucose levels, administer insulin and understand the importance of diet and exercise. It wants the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to make diabetes training part of a care home’s registration requirements.

Young says, “Even the most basic training and awareness can have a huge impact on improving the quality of life for thousands of society’s most vulnerable people by preventing the complications of diabetes as well as reducing costs to the NHS.”
Care homes

More than half of care homes (54%) felt their local authority could do more to provide encouragement, information and guidance to offer effective diabetes care.

One care home manager told researchers: “Never in four years of being a home manager has anyone from the local authority come in to/or contacted the home about diabetes”. Another said, “[our] PCT refuses to provide training to nursing homes”, while a third believed diabetes care “is an NHS responsibility, rather than a social care one”.