DSN Spotlight – Carol Jairam

By Editor
31st July 2018
DSN Spotlight

The role of the diabetes specialist nurse is hugely important in ensuring high-quality diabetes care. Our DSN Spotlight series celebrates this great position and also aims to find out more about those who are making a difference to people with diabetes every day.

Job title: Lead Diabetes Specialist Nurse

Trust: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Time in position: four years

What’s your biggest challenge in diabetes today?

Meeting the multiple demands due to changes in diagnostic classification, incidence, drug therapies, treatment pathways and technologies all on minimal staffing. On the other hand these changes make for exciting, dynamic and interesting service provision!

What’s been your biggest achievement in diabetes care?

Being able to contribute clinically and academically to a wide range of very specialist services in secondary care – inpatient care, diabetes technologies (insulin pump therapy, CGM, Diaport), non-classical diabetes clinics, physical activity clinics and provision of structured education.

I cannot fault job satisfaction in my role as a DSN due to the impact on patient care, role model to generalist and specialist nurses and in my own professional development as a specialist resource.

What would you like to see change in diabetes?

  • Improved access to technology.
  • Clarifying diagnosis as the distinction is important to the patient and service provision.
  • Enabling easier access to healthy lifestyle changes
  • Improved access to psychological support

What’s been the biggest development in the last 10 years?

  • Improving access to technologies.
  • New classes of oral agents and injectables.
  • Diagnostic criteria.
  • Paradigm shift in care planning where care is more patient-focused but still work to be done.

What is the best way to achieve good health outcomes with your patients?

  • Being honest, open to continually maintain a good and professional rapport.
  • Engaging the patients in setting their goals in a relevant and meaningful way to them.
  • Being responsive and sensitive to needs that are pertinent to them.
  • Being an enabler, support, resource but being clear about the patient’s responsibilities in achieving goals.

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