Hundreds of young people across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire are benefiting from new technologies that support the management of Type 1 diabetes.
This new technology links a glucose monitor to an insulin pump and automatically adjusts insulin delivery, helping families of the 35,000 children and young people under 19 in the UK who have diabetes, to spend less time firefighting blood glucose highs and lows, especially overnight, allowing children to be children again.
NHS England has called it a world-first rollout. The five-year rollout of hybrid-closed loop technology (HCL) has reached its two-year checkpoint. Focused on children and young people in its opening two years, the scale of uptake is significant, delivering a dramatic surge in adoption across England and Wales with 73% of children now using the technology, up sharply from 43% at launch.
6 Towns Radio had the opportunity to speak to Dr Alistair Lumb, consultant in diabetes and Chair of Diabetes Technology Network-UK.
Of the HCL systems, Dr Lumb said: “Both high and low blood glucose readings can be problematic for people with diabetes. They can get quite unwell, and so, by having some automatic adjustment of the insulin that's going into the body, because the body's not making any for itself, it really helps to avoid those high and low readings.”
The benefits of HCL systems can be measured both clinically and by quality of life. “The clinical benefits we see are fewer of those of low blood glucose readings which can be problematic for people in the short term. When they're more severe, they can involve things like seizures, which obviously can be scary for people. Over the longer term, the higher readings are linked with some of complications that are associated are with diabetes. Problems with nerves or blood supply down to the feet, heart attacks and strokes. and problems with kidneys and eyes.”
Dr Lumb is excited to be working in this area and sees further developments in the future “It should be the expectation of clinicians, but also of people with Type 1 diabetes that we offer access to these systems. These systems are fantastic and they're improving all the time.”
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