Winner

Meg Cousins
Diabetes Specialist Nurse, Cardiff and Vale UHB

Summary

Meg has worked as a Diabetes Specialist Nurse since 2018. As part of her role she works as the lead for young adult services. The young adult diabetes service supports over 260 patients aged 17-25 from across Cardiff and Vale. Meg recognises that this age group often need additional support, not only with their diabetes management but also in wider aspects of their lives that can often impact their diabetes and overall health.

Reason for Nomination

Due to the additional support needs of many of our patients in this cohort, we often see high DNA rates, high HBA1c and a need for additional support such as; housing, education, employment and training and mental health and wellbeing support. Meg has implemented a number of new initiatives with the aim to re-engage patients that regularly DNA, provide opportunities for additional support as well as their diabetes management, improve the waiting room experience to encourage patient engagement and create opportunities for peer support. The aim of these initiatives is to reduce DNA rates, improve the service received and support to improve their overall diabetes management. Meg has developed new ways of working to make our services for young people accessible, to re-engage with young people who were not attending appointments, tailored existing insulin pump education to better meet the needs of young people with more complex learning needs, reviewed the delivery of structured education to encourage participation and organised social events/ peer support for young people with diabetes. Meg has created a booklet with updated information regarding the support available from the team and tech available. This has been posted to patients and followed up with a phone call/text. This approach has been successful in re-engaging a number of patients. Meg has reviewed how we support young people to transition from paediatric to adult services and as part of this she has created a bilingual ‘welcome to the young adult service’ booklet which is available as a hard copy or digitally. This is shared with newly diagnosed patients and those transitioning from paediatrics. The contents include images of the team, what to expect from the service and all contact details. Meg has collaborated with our youth worker to develop a padlet board. Patients are often late or miss their appointments due to parking difficulties at the hospital. Meg has created a transportation to the hospital poster which encourage the park and ride system and other methods of transportation. Meg recognises that the hospital environment is not always a place where patients want to visit on a regular basis so offers opportunities for engagement off site where possible and has delivered a number of group activities and 1-1 appointments in the community at a time and place that the young people feel most comfortable. This has included attending an Escape room, Seren Connect education sessions, having a meal together and 1-1 community visits. Many young people report not knowing other people of a similar age living with diabetes. These group activities are an opportunity to strengthen relationships between the team and the patients, and also a space for peer support networks to develop. Through consultation with young people Meg wanted to make improvements to the waiting room experience to make this time more meaningful. She set up a number of pop up stands with information for patients. This has been delivered by the team and also external providers including Diabetes Uk, Careers Wales, Retinopathy, podiatry and Cardiff Sexual health team. Additionally she has set up open days at both of our adult diabetes centres for young people and parents to have the opportunity to see the clinic areas and meet the team