The Individualised Health Care Plan for a Child or Young Person who has Diabetes (ICHP) was developed by the Children and Young People's North West Diabetes Network to improve care in education settings.Children spend 25% of their waking lives in school and those with diabetes have wide ranging needs. School staff have to keep up with increasingly complex care regimes, including monitoring glucose levels, giving injections and managing changing insulin regimes, carbohydrate counting, treating emergencies and monitoring physical activities and sport. However, there was little to support school staff – everyone was using different tools and they were not easy to read in an emergency situation.
A step by step care plan has been developed and is tailored to each child’s individual needs and supports and manages care for any age and insulin regime in nursery, schools or colleges. It covers all elements of day-to-day care and also what to do in emergency situations. The paediatric diabetes nurse completes the care plan, which can be used for all types of diabetes quickly and easily with the child/young person and their carer before sending it to school nurses or anyone else involved in caring for the child. It can be updated as needed, but is done at least once a year.
The IHCP can be printed out in an A5 booklet, so staff can have it for easy reference and in times of emergency can quickly refer to its coloured flow charts for guidance. The children are involved in setting goals for themselves and have a copy of the care plan for themselves.
Diabetes UK requested that the team adapt the IHCP to be a stand-alone document. This is now is available through their online resource http://bit.ly/1JaahCw