Sorry for the silence. I have been buried in the exciting Diabetes
Transformation Bid process which has taken over many people’s lives ever since
the application forms came out in December.
We wait to hear the results but we know that it was extremely
competitive with 252 bids submitted across England for a portion of the £42m on
offer.
So while we await in eager
anticipation for the results I thought I’d do my first small piece of lobbying.
Did you know that there are
583,837 non-clinical staff in the NHS. I
didn’t. I read it in the Health Service
Journal published in May 2016.
Bring out your violins but
sometimes I feel, as a non-clinical member of the NHS, like a second class
citizen. Even today my non-clinical role
was labelled as “bean counter” and “key board warrior”. None of it personal but still a little ouchy
for a sensitive soul like me.
This feeling was reinforced by
Diabetes UK last week. Diabetes UK are
advertising for more Diabetes UK Clinical Champions.
I would urge any clinical staff
to apply, including Allied Health Care Professionals, Practice Nurses, Retinal
Screening, Health Care Assistants, all clinical staff are eligible. The programme, by all accounts, is really
really wonderful. It is such a luxury to
have a programme where you can have quality education, surrounded and immersed
in your specific area of interest.
I think the next round of places
will be hotly contested.
The truth is…………….. I’m jealous.
Where are the opportunities for
non clinical staff to get really good education on the disease area that they
are most focused on?
I think it is human nature that
we are sometimes more interested in things that we know more about. I’ll admit, whilst I love learning something
new, my eyes sometimes glaze over when a meeting turns to a topic I know
nothing about and cannot contribute anything useful.
Don’t your ears prick up when
discussions turn to something you are interested in and know something about?
What better way to win hearts and
minds of Diabetes Commissioning Managers, Diabetes Network Managers, Diabetes Service
Managers, Diabetes Clinic/Education booking staff, etc than to give them a better
understanding of diabetes. For example,
I think it would be great if all managers working in diabetes knew the
difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes and why that might impact your
discussion with a patient when booking them into a clinic, or the sort of
service you are supporting to commission.
Obviously a doing a needs assessment
first would be handy, after all, not everyone is as geeky as me. It might prove that non clinical staff might not be remotely interested.
But quality education in diabetes
could enable more non clinical managers to have confident conversations with
their clinical colleagues. It might
enable better decision making and quality interactions.
So if anyone is willing to run education for Diabetes “Champions”,
please put my name down.
Let’s have Diabetes champions ………………… whoever you are.
