Trend UK meets England’s chief nurse
A leading diabetes specialist nurse organisation has met with the chief nurse to outline the challenges they face everyday.
Debbie Hicks, Jill Hill and June James, the co-chairs of Trend-UK (Training, Research and Education for Nurses in Diabetes-UK) met with the chief nursing officer for England.
Ms Hicks said: “In our discussion with Jane Cummings, we were able to stress the challenges faced by DSNs which impact on people with diabetes.”
Some of the issues they highlighted included primary, community and secondary care work environments which differ and lack consistency in access to training and education, difficulties in recruiting to DSN posts and how it is difficult to get time and funding for training.
Ms Hicks added: “We believe the work of Trend-UK is beginning to meet some of these challenges with the Integrated Career and Competency Framework.”
It was created in a bid to standardise diabetes nursing practice across different providers, provide a framework for measurement of competence, guide career progression and measure the effectiveness of training.
It was discovered during the meeting, which was made possible through Partha Kar, NHS England’s Associate Clinical Director for Diabetes, that Ms Cummings had been aware of the Competency Framework, but was keen to see examples of where it had improved care for people with diabetes.
Trend-UK were able to provide her with examples but would also like to hear from other teams who can share their own experiences and would be willing to forward to us at info@trend-uk.com(please check this is correct address as was not operation earlier this week).
Ms Hicks said: “We all know that the prevalence of diabetes is growing exponentially. Sadly, the number of nurses working in the field of diabetes care is not, but we owe it to our patients to ensure that we are a knowledgeable and competent workforce, and that we are ready to enable people with diabetes to be as knowledgeable about their condition as they can be, encouraging self-management.
“Currently, there is no consistency in the training and development of DSNs and no clear pathway; however, the Novo Nordisk/Trend-UK partnership programme can be seen as an example of targeted training and support appropriate for the level at which the DSN is working or aspiring to work, as per Diabetes UK recommendations. The project provides a pathway towards DSN leadership in the future.