Two million people with diabetes in England missed recommended vital health checkups during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, says the Diabetes UK charity, as they launch the new “Diabetes Is Serious” campaign to take the disease seriously, and the new one Minister of Health to put diabetes high on the health agenda.
There were also around 60,000 missed or late diagnoses of type 2 diabetes in the UK between March and December 2020, according to National Diabetes Audit data highlighted by the charity.
“We are sitting on a diabetes time bomb – a rapidly growing diabetes care crisis,” said Chris Askew, OBE, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK, adding, “To address this crisis head on, the government must make diabetes a priority and invest properly and fight against it. “
Simon Heller, MD, professor of clinical diabetes at the University of Sheffield, UK, said his service continued to provide remote advice to a large extent during the pandemic, but the availability of technology has increased inequalities in society.
“I’ve had mostly phone consultations, but it depends on people being comfortable with remote consulting and related technology and having access to the technology,” he told Medscape Medical News in an interview.
“It is the responsibility of the healthcare professional, be it type 2 or 1 [diabetes]to ensure patients are monitored and their condition is supported. That has become possible in the realms [who can afford remote monitoring technology] but not the socially disadvantaged, to a certain extent also ethnic minorities who are disadvantaged. “
“We have seen many Type 1 patients increasingly with the technology to provide remote monitoring data to clinicians,” said Heller.
“But with type 2 diabetes and basic care, it’s completely different, as counseling and access are absolutely devastated.”
The situation “should be seen as a catalyst for us to review how we deliver health care and is a wake-up call to address the inequalities in society that are all reflected in type 2 diabetes,” Heller said.
“Telemedicine can work, but face-to-face counseling works better to encourage people to take control of their condition and change the habits of their lives.”
Five important recommendations as 40% of patients were not receiving vital care
The data from the audit, which was conducted between January and December 2020, shows the scale of the problem and shows a worrying decline in essential health checks.
In total, 2,262,775 people with type 2 diabetes did not receive all of the eight vital treatments needed to reduce the risk of serious diabetes complications such as poor pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular and kidney disease, diabetic retinopathy, and foot problems that lead to Amputation. This corresponds to a decrease of 40.8% compared to the same period in 2019.
In people with type 1 diabetes, 201,620 people did not receive all eight vital care procedures – a 37.5% decrease compared to 2019.
And type 1 diabetes was the most common delayed pediatric emergency care presentation during the UK’s first wave of pandemics, Medscape Medical News reported last year.
A recent survey of nearly 4,000 people with diabetes conducted by Diabetes UK reflects the dire results of the audit.
Consultations that have still not taken place have been canceled in a third of diabetics; a third said they had not had any contact with their diabetes team since the pandemic began; and 45% said they had difficulty managing their diabetes during the pandemic, with most citing a lack of access to care and support from their diabetes health team as the reason.
Diabetes UK made five key recommendations to the UK government calling for:
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Urgent prioritization of diabetes care and prevention as a central part of the government’s response to the pandemic.
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Earmarked funding for local health commissioners to improve the use of diabetes technology in their areas.
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Commitment to including people with diabetes in post-pandemic mental health improvement plans in the country.
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Funding and developing the NHS staff to provide more staff to provide quality diabetes-specific care.
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Further investment in services to prevent people from developing type 2 diabetes.
A patient profiled by Diabetes UK described a typical experience.
David Hall of Norfolk, UK, who has type 2 diabetes, said his last annual hospital check-up was in March 2019. “Since then, I’ve had problems with a new insulin that was prescribed for me, and that often my blood sugar was high at night,” he said.
“I kept trying to call the hospital for an appointment and my check-ups, but no one ever called me. Luckily my wife is a nurse so she was able to help me treat my diabetes, but I felt isolated me during the time. ” the pandemic. “
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