29 November 2019
Diabetes – Self-management support
Seonaid Morrison is an Advanced Diabetes Nurse for Argyll & Bute Health & Social Care Partnership. Seonaid has kindly taken some time to share with us her experiences of working with Flo as part of our “Focus on Evaluation Project”.
What is your background and role within your organisation? I’ve been in the NHS since 1984; my background is nursing and my roles have changed over the years I have been practicing. I have worked within the ward situation as well as being a diabetes specialist nurse and doing some management posts.
Were there any surprises?
No, we haven’t had any surprises, but we are very happy that a number of our patients have used the service and had a positive experience based on the feedback that we have received. All of the feedback from Flo has been positive and people like to receive Flo’s prompts as they remind them of the goals they have set and encourage them to take forward their goals.
Change can be difficult; if you experienced any resistance within your team, how did you overcome this?
As we are part of a very small team we are all very motivated and believe that change can be a positive rather than a negative, so we have not had any difficulties with this.
What do your clinicians like about Flo?
As a clinician, Flo is very easy to use. Flo is used in addition to our structured education programmes; we would not routinely follow up those patients who had taken part, and they are later invited to yearly review sessions. We have therefore implemented Flo as an additional tool to support and act as a prompt to assist people to think about their self-management between the initial education we provide, and the yearly follow-up. Flo has been a positive tool for us, and all our educators believe this is beneficial for both patients and themselves in their practice.
An additional benefit is that where there were previously no structured education programmes available in Argyll & Bute, we are now offering them to patients and Flo supports us with this.
What do you consider your biggest success with Flo?I think that our biggest success is having patients report back to us that Flo has been helpful as a reminder to self-manage their condition. Patients who have used Flo tell us that she has kept them on track with changes in their diet and/or exercise, which can really improve their long-term health outcomes.
What are the future plans with Flo?We plan to keep using Flo for diabetes education; at the moment, whenever we change any of our patient education we update the information on Flo to maintain continuity. If we develop any further education for patients we would look to incorporating Flo in addition to our practice.
How do your patients feel about Flo?Any patients that have utilised the service have provided positive feedback about the addition of Flo. We have seen examples of various positive outcomes including weight loss, reduced blood pressure and blood glucose levels, which is fantastic.
What can you do more/less/differently with Flo?
I don’t think we can do anything differently at the moment, as Flo is successfully enhancing the education available for patients in Argyll & Bute.
#Diabetes #Diabetes Educational Programme #Argyll & Bute #Scotland #TotallyUnique
