Recognising the importance of good inpatient diabetes care and in pursuance of the findings of the national diabetes audit, the trust has made significant efforts towards establishing a good diabetes in patient service. To ensure a well developed multidisciplinary care, a working group involving clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, anaesthetists, surgeons and dieticians called the Delivering Excellent Care to In patients with Diabetes (DECIDE) group was established. The team is led by Dr Jayadave Shakher and the service is now available at all three sites. There are 3 dedicated diabetes in patient nurses on the Heartlands site who also cover the Solihull site. At Good Hope Hospital, the service is led by Dr Teh and supported by two diabetes nurses. The inpatient diabetes team do a daily ward round in all acute wards and also take referrals from other wards. In addition, regular ward rounds on elderly care and cardiology wards have been started. The DECIDE team have also been involved in training of nurses on the wards, increase awareness amongst junior doctors and develop diabetes champions. Plans are afoot to develop nominated wards on each site as Diabetes Wards (for example ward 9 on Heartlands site).
Since the introduction of the DECIDE team there has been a significant reduction in length of stay, and medication errors amongst patients with diabetes.
