2 in 3 diabetes patients lack essential care plan

Nearly 2 in 3 people with diabetes in the UK are being let down by the NHS as they do not have a personal care plan in place, a new study has revealed.
Care plans are vital for empowering people to take control of their diabetes and reducing their risk of developing serious complications such as heart disease, kidney failure and amputation.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that every person diagnosed with diabetes should receive personalised care planning resulting in an agreed plan of action between themselves and their health care team on how best to manage their diabetes.
But despite this, research by Diabetes UK found that a lack of care planning is a problem for almost two-thirds of diabetic patients.
The charity group’s annual online survey on diabetes healthcare revealed that 65% of the 1,609 people with diabetes polled said they had no care plan in place.
As well as calling on NHS organisations to ensure every diabetes patient has a personalised care plan, Diabetes UK is also urging people with the condition to make sure they are aware of the importance of care planning.
“We know that personalised care planning helps put people with diabetes in the driving seat and, crucially, gives them a better chance of a long and healthy life,” said Barbara Young, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK.
She added: “By helping prevent complications, care planning is good news for people with diabetes and good news for the NHS’s finances, which is why we want more people to get it. We need to get the message across to the NHS that if people with diabetes do not have personalised care planning at the moment, then this needs to be rectified urgently and in some cases this will need to be built into the development of diabetes services.
“But equally, it is really important that people with diabetes understand what healthcare they are entitled to so that they can hold the NHS to account if they are not getting it.”
To help improve awareness of the importance of diabetes care plans, the charity has launched an animation showing how people can get more involved and play a bigger role in their diabetes care.