An eye catching and hard hitting poster campaign has been launched this week to promote its safe use of insulin e-learning training to NHS hospital staff in England. The campaign calls on staff to ‘Do the course. Save a life’.
Every hospital trust in England has been sent a resource pack containing information designed to encourage staff to complete the free online training.
Insulin errors are serious and can kill, and therefore safe use of insulin training is mandatory for all staff that prescribe, prepare or administer insulin.
The campaign highlights key facts to NHS staff:
- 1 in 5 patients on an inpatient ward has diabetes
- Around 4 in 10 inpatients with diabetes experience a medication error
- Since 2003 insulin errors have led to more than 17,000 safety incidents
Anna Morton, Director of NHS Diabetes said: “We are calling on diabetes teams in hospitals to promote the safe use of insulin e-learning course and encourage their non-diabetes colleagues to sign up for and complete the training. Over 75,000 frontline NHS staff have now registered for the training but to really reduce insulin errors we need to ensure all NHS staff who prescribe, prepare or administer insulin are appropriately trained. Together we can bring down the numbers of avoidable errors and ensure inpatients with diabetes receive the best possible care.”
Poster packs will arrive with diabetes teams from next week. The launch of the campaign coincides with the launch of new figures on diabetes inpatient mortality which will be released next week. Improving insulin safety is one way to reduce harm to patients staying in hospital.
More information: http://www.diabetes.nhs.uk/safe_use_of_insulin/safe_use_of_insulin_elearning_module/