DIABETES CHARITY SHORTLISTED FOR AWARD

Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation (DRWF), a national diabetes charity based on Hayling Island, Hampshire, has been shortlisted for a Quality in Care (QiC) award in the category called ‘Empowering People with Diabetes’ for an initiative it launched on the South Coast and has now rolled out nationally, hosting diabetes wellness events that are empowering people in effective self-management.

“We are very proud to have been shortlisted in this year’s QiC awards,” said DRWF CEO Sarah Bone. We have worked very hard to measure the effectiveness of these events for people living with diabetes. Professor Kath Barnard, Managing Director of BHR Limited and a member of the DRWF Research Advisor Board has conducted a two year research project for DRWF with a number of event attendees. Her detailed report demonstrates how much the events improve delegates’ diabetes self-management skills which we know leads to better long term health and wellbeing outcomes.”

DRWF first implemented its diabetes wellness event programme in 2001 providing a number of workshops, residential weekends and activity holidays focused on providing expert health information in a relaxed and supportive environment. The Diabetes Wellness Day format has been running for the last nine years, initially in the south of the country followed seven years ago by a wellness day in the North East and, later this year, the first wellness day Midlands.

Each day is supported by regional diabetes healthcare professionals and diabetes diagnostic companies, with a programme of talks and an exhibition space, with the opportunity for people to meet and share their own experiences.

“This year’s wellness day South was another excellent event full of useful information with great speakers and friendly atmosphere. It is incredibly useful to hear fresh approaches on treatments and reasoning that can help both new and ancient diabetics like me.” Commented 2017 delegate John Munford.

QiC is an awards programme that recognises good practice in patient care and joint working in key therapy areas and allows these schemes to be shared and disseminated on a national level.

Its aims are to:

• Support healthcare providers in a practical way to improve standards of care
• Identify and showcase existing initiatives which are directly or indirectly improving care
• Disseminate these more widely to enable individuals and teams working in healthcare across the country to learn from good practice.

Each programme involves the support of healthcare professionals, charities, industry and NHS.

All categories in the awards programmes support one or more of the domains as defined by the current NHS Outcomes Framework.

Gaining QiC recognition means that an initiative has been highlighted by the NHS, charities, patient organisation and industry as improving patient experience, standards of care and outcomes.

Current awards programmes include QiC Diabetes, QiC Oncology, QiC Hepatitis C and QiC Anticoagulation.

The awards ceremony is on Thursday 12th October from 6-9:30pm at Sanofi’s head office in Guildford, Surrey. Sanofi is a global integrated healthcare leader focused on patients' needs, with an 85-year commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of diabetes patients. Faced with the public health challenge of the worldwide diabetes epidemic, Sanofi aims to lead the fight against diabetes with a portfolio approach.