A London guide for teachers and parents of children and young people with diabetes: pre-school, early years, primary and secondary schoolsThe 2010 Children, Schools and Families Act and the Children and Families Act 2014 introduced a legal duty on schools to look after children with medical conditions. However, last year the Children and Young People’s Transformation programme of the Healthy London Partnership (a collaboration between the 32 CCGs in London and NHS England) was approached by parents about the difficulties they were experiencing in accessing appropriate care for their children.
Over 31,500 young people under the age of 19 in the UK are diagnosed with diabetes
About one in 700 are school-age children and they spend much of their waking day in school. In London there are approximately 4000 children and young people with Type 1 diabetes. Managing the demands of diabetes in daily life can be challenging: currently only 18.4% of children in the UK are achieving the recommended level of blood sugar (glycaemia) control. Having diabetes has implications for a child’s schooling and learning. It impacts on care given within schools and early years settings. Appropriate diabetes care is necessary for a child’s immediate safety, long-term wellbeing, and optimal academic performance. It is essential that all school staff and those who support younger children have an awareness of this medical condition and the needs of pupils during the school day.
Therefore, the Programme Lead from the Healthy London Partnership brought together a small group of parents, commissioners, and providers, the South East Coast and London Diabetes Partnership Board, members of the South London Academic Health Science Network and Diabetes UK to discuss the issue. They reviewed existing documentation and current legislation to reach a consensus agreement on guidance to be used by parents and teachers to improve the management for children with diabetes in schools. Feedback was obtained from teachers, parents, the Newham Diabetes Youth Commissioners (Young people with both Type one and Type two diabetes), and stakeholders mentioned above.
The resulting document was launched at a joint Diabetes Network and Diabetes UK stakeholder event on 11th December 2015. This has since been cascaded out to schools, school nurse leads, clinical commissioning groups, local authorities, paediatric diabetes units, via the South East Coast and London Paediatric Diabetes Networks parents group.
It has been well received. Example quotes since publication: 'This is a wonderful document – so clear and contains really useful guidance and recommendations.'
'From a parents point of view, whose child is now 15 and having had to fight for support when she was aged 5 and then thankfully have 1 : 1 throughout, I think it is absolutely utterly brilliant. It is now there in black and white or a rather fetching pink. Hopefully as this is rolled out there will be less and less having to have the fights/heated discussions that some of us have had to have over the years with LA’s, PCT’s, CCG’s, schools etc. Thank you for all the hard work.'
Document available https://www.myhealth.london.nhs.uk/healthy-london/children-and-young-people/resources
Next steps are to look at a series of videos for schools to help with implementation.
We would welcome any further comments to: [email protected]