A lack of specialist nurses and other expert staff is continuing to contribute to unnecessary patient harms in hospital, according to the latest major audit of diabetes care.
It found a significant fall in diabetic foot ulcers over the last five years, but few changes in other patient harms and a continuing lack of specialist nurses in many hospitals.
Only 1.1% of inpatients with diabetes developed a new foot lesion during their admission to hospital, a significant decrease from 2.2% when inpatient auditing began in 2010.
But 67% of inpatients in the latest audit did not have a specific diabetic foot risk examination while in hospital and 31% of sites do not have a multi-disciplinary diabetic foot care team.
The findings form part of the 2015 National Diabetes Inpatient Audit, which is carried out by the Health and Social Care Information Centre in collaboration with the charity Diabetes UK.
Full story in Nursing Times 28 June 2016