Pract Diab Int March 2003 Vol. 20 No. 2 Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 77

CONFERENCE

Over 130 delegates attended the 2002AGM and Conference of the RCNPaediatric and Adolescent DiabetesGroup: From Pumps to Publishing,held on 22–23 November 2002 at theCrowne Plaza Hotel in Birmingham.Thanks must go yet again to theexcellent chairs: Simon Breed, AlanMcDougall and Fiona Smith, to thespeakers and the companies who sup-ported and sponsored us, helping thecommittee to keep prices down fordelegates, ensuring once again that itwas a varied and successful event.

Katrina McNamara-Goodger,Nursing Officer from the Depart-ment of Health was our first speakerof the day, updating us on theChildren’s National Service Frame-work (NSF). This was a very interest-ing look at changes within the NHSthat are affecting and influencingguidelines for care, aims and princi-ples of the NSF and key issues.Katrina also reminded us how impor-tant it is for nurses to be involved inshaping children’s services.

Alex Smith from Diabetes UK,the second speaker of the dayupdated us on the Diabetes UKNational Paediatric Audit 2001. Itseems more centres were involved inthis audit than in 2000 but still someinformation is not complete. Thisaudit does show an increase in type 2diabetes in children, poorer HbA1crelated to longer duration of diabetes, age, season and depriva-tion and, more worryingly still, insome areas readmission rates withdiabetic ketoacidosis as high as 30%.The report is now available on theirwebsite: www.diabetes.org.uk/audit/npa/ and is worth looking at.

The afternoon session started offwith several workshops: paediatricdiabetes specialist nurses (PDSNs)new in post, planning a holiday,alternative site testing, diabetes andcoeliac disease, diabetes and cysticfibrosis and MODY. Each group thenfed back from these workshops,which led to some lively and usefuldiscussion around these issues.

Judith Campbell, Paediatric Diabetes Clinical Nurse Specialist

(PDCNS) from Booths Hall,Manchester then shared with us avery interesting project they havestarted with young people and theirfamily/friends, aimed at increasingawareness of the importance of bloodglucose control particularly withregard to hypos. The group sessionsthey organised were aimed at increas-ing knowledge about physical cues,performance and mood changesaround hypos, how insulin and foodaffect blood glucose and then puttingall this information together to helpempower and improve patient aware-ness and skills. It proved a great suc-cess with parents and young peopleinvolved and the team plan to carryon with the course and use some of itsprinciples in their daily work.

Day two proved just as varied andinteresting. Carol Carson, DiabetesFacilitator from Edinburgh started bysharing a project that she is involvedin using drama with young people toexplore issues and concerns theyhave about diabetes. These youngpeople were able to express whatthey do not like about diabetes, theirworries, what would make it betterand also what was good about it.There were many issues around gly-caemic control, stress, feeling differ-ent and health care. You will bepleased to know that us nurses didnot come out too badly.

Shanaz Mughal, a DiabetesSpecialist Nurse from theHeartlands Hospital then gave us avery interesting talk about copingwith Ramadan and diabetes, in par-ticular the issue of fasting. Fasting isnot an option with type 1 diabetesand many of the issues discussedrelated to type 2 diabetes; however,it will impact on our young childrenwith type 1 as the routine changesto fit in with starting and breakingthe fast each day, and do not forgetthere is an increasing number ofchildren with type 2 diabetes now!

Melanie Cain, Projects Managerfrom Novo Nordisk then took usthrough clinical trials and stages ofthe development of a new drug, theimportance of patient protection

and their rights. The problems andissues surrounding paediatric stud-ies were discussed, including sub-ject recruitment with limited num-bers, parental consent and theimportance of adapting studies tomake them more fun for youngpeople to ensure compliance.

Lorna MacGillivray, BehavioralPsychologist, then shared with usher study that looked at familieswho had suffered the loss of a childand what they had found helpful orunhelpful at the time and after-wards. Several recommendationscame out of the study including thefamilies’ need for up to date infor-mation regarding support available,better explanations of event andchecking the families fully under-stand, one contact person, honestyand a follow-up system for unan-swered questions.

Gill Salt, PDCNS from Wolver-hampton then discussed the use ofinsulin pumps in young children,the reasons for use, preparation,safety and training issues, and prob-lems encountered. She thenhanded over to four very brave andvocal young people who usedpumps, who were able to answerour questions about what its like tolive with a pump and some of theproblems they have encountered.Generally the pump got a thumbsup from these young people as itmade them feel better and in morecontrol of their own care.

Initial evaluation of this confer-ence was again very positive and thecommittee welcomes any sugges-tions for future venues and requestsfor future topics or speakers.

Date for your diary Next study day is on Wednesday 11June 2003 at New Cross HospitalPostgraduate Centre and is entitled‘Pushing the Frontiers’. Subjects willinclude: audit, clinical governance,dentistry, quality of life studies, careplanning, partnership working, plan-ning holidays and MODY. Next con-ference will be 21–22 November 2003at the Belfry Hotel in Warwickshire.

RCN Paediatric and Adolescent DiabetesGroup 2002 Conference