The DSN Forum UK were nominated and won the Quality in care (QiC) Diabetes Professional of the Year in 2018. This was for our work on founding and setting up the forum and making it what is is today. Initially with a closed Facebook, which now has over 1600 members, a twitter account, website, YouTube channel, TikTok account, The forum allows DSNs to network at the click of a button, share best practice and also an area to ask for advice and support. The forum has organised a mental health study day, DSN UK tour and has been involved in many other diabetes conferences, initiatives are are also now part of the QiC Diabetes judging panel.
In February 2019 the first ever DSN Forum tour was unleashed. Many DSN's across the county gave their time freely to help make the first DSN forum tour a success. We visited diabetes teams in Cambridge, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Southhampton and London. The aim of this tour was to raise awareness of diabetes nursing as a speciality, to inspire the next generation of nurses into diabetes and to build a DSN community support network spanning the UK!
The Diabetes 101 Twitter team was set up in March 2020 by Beth, Amanda and Prof Partha Kar. This was in response to the Covid-19 pandemic to support people living with diabetes by signposting to accredited and accurate information. People with diabetes were highlighted as one of the vunerable groups of people more at risk of poorer outcomes from Covid-19. The team is made up of 19 MDT diabetes HCP's withTamsin and Vicki also part of the team. This twitter account now has nearly 5.5 K followers and is also a voluntary initiative, in which all members give their time in addition to their day to day clinical roles. The team has also launched their new website diabetes101.co.uk
There has been some controversy around whether health care professionals should be on TikTok but we felt that as long as we are adhering to the NMC code of conduct, then why not. It is a new and innovative way to raise awareness about diabetes and provide education to different age groups of people. We have used TikTok so far or insulin safety week, hypo awareness week and language matters to name but a few. Why not follow us @dsnforumuk!!
The DSN Forum have a monthly newsletter highlighting all the latest developments in the diabetes world. This is published in the Journal of Diabetes Nursing and can also be accessed via Diabetes on the Net (DOTN).
After winning the QiC Diabetes Professionals of the Year in 2018 the DSN Forum are now part of the annual awards ceremony judging panel which a huge honour.
QiC Diabetes aims to recognise, reward and share innovative practice demonstrating quality in diabetes management, education and services for people with diabetes and/or their families.
Entries are invited from anyone working in the diabetes arena in the UK and Ireland. Judges are keen to review a wide spectrum of entries and to recognise the innovative practice that we know is out there.
The DPC conference went virtual for the first time and ran from 11-13th November. The DSN forum were very excited to be a large contributor to this years conference with a specific DSN theatre dedicated to DSN's to showcase their work. Many of the DSN forum sessions ran from this theatre. Amanda and Beth did a fabulous presentation about Social Media and nursing, Tamsin spoke about her experiencing of "pumping in a pandemic" and Vicki shared her work in Liverpool and how the team have worked as an integrated community team over the last 5 years. For anyone who registered for the event the sessions are all available on catch up for the next 3 months. Find out more here