Raising awareness of hypoglycaemia is something staff take seriously all year round and they have co-ordinated awareness of the condition among co-workers to reduce numbers within the hospital. The four diabetes teams, led by a Project Lead, have a targeted and a co-ordinated effort across the health board in managing and preventing hypoglycaemia.
Point of care testing involves diabetes education and hypoglycaemia prevention and management. In 2016 they rolled out hypo awareness week in all main hospitals and this year they increased reach to further areas, including mental health, paediatrics and community nursing.
Since 2015 the team have encouraged nurse and healthcare support workers to undertake eLearning hypoglycaemia modules subscribed from Virtual College. They have a training update called Think Glucose and to date over 2,500 staff have attended face-to-face training. There have also been 340 hypoglycaemia modules completed with a total of 2,020 diabetes modules completed.
They have also published a diabetes passport module of learning. They have been monitoring the hypoglycaemia rates in their area and reported they are decreasing as a percentage of their tests. To spread the word for hypo awareness the teams have learnt to tweet, and adopted a four-minute pocket video on hypos in hospital developed in Wales. Next year their Think Glucose Champions will be on board and there will be more than 100 champions to cover all their clinical areas. There are also plans to extend to primary care surgeries, maternity and learning disabilities.