Diabetes specialist nurses to share experience with friends in South East Asia

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Two leading nurses specializing in diabetes are the first UK nurses to join a new charity initiative aimed at improving outcomes for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes in Southeast Asia.

Bethany Kelly and Amanda Epps, the nurses behind the Diabetes Specialist Nurse (DSN) Forum UK, have been appointed by Action 4 Diabetes to join their new multidisciplinary advisory group for health professionals.

“It will be great to help other nurses who are trying to do their best, just like us, but with very limited resources.”

Bethany Kelly

The charity was founded in 2015 to help disadvantaged people aged 25 and under with type 1 diabetes in Southeast Asia by improving their access to essential medicine, equipment, care and education.

The new advisory group aims to support this mission by bringing together diabetes experts from the UK and Southeast Asia to share expertise, insights and innovation ideas to improve health care for this patient population.

The professionals had their first virtual meeting last month and put together a list of priorities, including the need to improve the “occupancy and skills” of nurses who they said play “a key role” in managing the condition.

Ms. Kelly and Ms. Epps are best known for their work in launching the DSN Forum UK in 2018, which was later recognized by former Prime Minister Theresa May at a special reception on Downing Street.

You are the only UK nurses appointed to the charity’s advisory group.

As part of their work with the group, the specialist nurses aim to develop a range of educational programs and peer support networks between nurses in Southeast Asia and the UK.

Ms. Kelly, a nurse specializing in diabetes with the Solent NHS Trust, said that nurses in Southeast Asia often have access to “very limited resources and sometimes work in poor or dangerous conditions.”

Bethany Kelly

She told Nursing Times, “It will be great to use our platform that we have in the UK to help other nurses who are also trying to do their best, just like us, but with very limited resources. I can’t imagine how difficult that is. “

Ms. Epps, a nurse specializing in diabetes with the Medway NHS Foundation Trust, has a child with type 1 diabetes and was recently diagnosed with it herself.

She said the charity is “very close to my heart” and that it wants to help nurses and people with type 1 diabetes in Southeast Asia as much as possible.

Ms. Epps told the Nursing Times how they wanted to use what they learned from founding the DSN Forum UK to create something similar for nurses in Southeast Asia.

amanda eps 2

Amanda Epps

With more than 1,800 nurses, the forum is believed to be the “largest national association” of diabetes specialist nurses in the UK.

“So we hope that we can use these skills to help them build their own peer support network in these countries … so that they can share their work in all of these countries and try to improve care. Said Mrs. Epps.

The specialist nurses hope to be able to travel to South Asia as part of their work with the charity once the coronavirus pandemic subsides.