Sheffield diabetes team wins top healthcare award for insulin safety

A Sheffield healthcare team has won a prestigious award for promoting insulin safety in hospitals for people with diabetes.
The Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was named joint winner of the Rowan Hillson Insulin Safety Award for ensuring inpatients had easy and safe access to insulin during their stay.
Sallianne Kavanagh, lead pharmacist for Sheffield Teaching Hospital’s diabetes and endocrinology teams, said: “We are delighted to have been named joint winners of this prestigious award.
“Diabetes is a lifelong condition, and people are taught to monitor their glucose and adjust their insulin doses on an ongoing basis. Continuing to do this in a hospital environment has been highlighted as best practice in national guidelines and through this pharmacy-led project we have been able to support this as much as possible and when there isn’t a specific reason not to.”
The newly adopted approach saw the pharmacy team partner up with those working on the diabetes specialist unit. Together they developed a diabetes pharmacist role which was created specifically to improve and raise awareness of insulin safety in hospital.
The role also ensured national guidelines for insulin safety was met, as well as educating hospital staff about insulin self-management.
Ms Kavanagh added: “We worked closely with our patients and our Medicines Safety Committee to find out what was important in terms of insulin control in a hospital environment, and what practical measures we could do to support them to continue to look after their own insulin when there was no specific reason not to.
“Our pharmacy and diabetes team have a really good relationship, so this is great recognition of the work we are doing and the difference teamwork can make to patient care.”
The awards, which are run by the Joint Diabetes Societies for Inpatient Care, were developed to recognise excellence in insulin safety.
Dr Rowan Hillso, who is internationally renowned for her diabetes work, said: “I would like to thank everyone who submitted entries and all those who developed and participated in the projects across the country.