NICE: all adults and children with type one diabetes to have real time continuous glucose monitors

The fantastic news this spring is that ALL type one adults and children are to be offered real time blood sugar monitors in the NHS.

These machines encourage testing without the finger pricks, tell you the trend of your blood sugars, and make it much more accurate, easier and less painful to adjust your insulin to your blood sugar.

The monitors will also be offered to type two patients who use insulin.

NICE estimates that a quarter of a million type one patients alone will be put on the device. Research suggests that HbA1c levels tend to drop when using the technology without increasing the risk of hypoglycaemia.

My comment: My son Steven, was an early adopter or this method of blood sugar monitoring. I paid for the device and sensors for the first 18 months because it gave me more peace of mind, especially as he was living on his own away from home. It seemed crazy to me that he was excluded from NHS funding by virtue of having very tight blood sugar control mainly from his own efforts. Although it is a charge on the NHS for the sensors, the benefit is that there should be less hospitalisation from hypos and fewer complications later on.

Currently the NHS spends ten billion pounds a year on diabetes, which is ten percent of the total budget.

For those type ones or type twos on insulin who do not yet have this device they are asked by NICE to approach their diabetes teams.