Structured educational model for SMBG: A model for primary care delivery

Abstract

The Diabetes National Service Framework (NSF) highlights the crucial part that education has to play in enabling people with diabetes to effectively take control of their condition, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (2009) recommends that self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) is an integral part of an individual's self-management strategy. However, the cost to the NHS of SMBG in 2010 was nearly £150 million on an annual basis, and this figure is set to increase ( National Prescribing Centre, 2009 ). Combining these facts and recommendations with those from the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) programme, the Aston Healthcare Commissioning Group in Knowsley partnered with LifeScan (part of the Johnson and Johnson family of companies) to develop and initiate a new model of education for SMBG that resulted in: • A 60% uptake of a review model, which covered the consultation and education on SMBG guidelines • 10-minute educational clinics which led to a 25.4% reduction in overall usage of test strips • Prescribing savings to the value of £18 564 on a total annual spend of £73 086 • A net change of + 3.5% in the number of people with diabetes with %HbA1c < 7.5 and a net change of − 3.3% in the number of people with diabetes with %HbA1c 7.5–10 among the 718 type 2 diabetics who took part ( Aston Healthcare, 2009 ).