All the action for Hypo Awareness Week

Hypo Awareness Week is back and we’ve got plenty planned for this year’s campaign.

The annual drive to raise awareness of hypoglycaemia in the UK, by educating healthcare professionals, will take place between Monday, October 3, and Sunday, October 9.

The number of people with diabetes occupying hospital beds has increased since 2010, up from 14.6 per cent to 16.8 per cent in 2015, according to the latest results from the National Diabetes Inpatient Audit1.

The bedside survey also found that more than one fifth (21.8 per cent) of inpatients had one or more hypoglycaemic episodes over the previous seven days of their stay.

The annual campaign aims to raise awareness of hypoglycaemia in the UK by educating healthcare professionals about the condition. The theme for this year is optimum control and the autumn awareness drive is calling for a good control of diabetes to avoid hypos.

Key messages for this campaign:

• Hospitalisation of people with diabetes following a hypoglycaemic episode leads to significant expenditure and use of healthcare resources.
• Inpatients who experience hypoglycaemia are likely to have an increased length of hospital stay and are at a higher risk of dying in hospital;
• Reducing the incidence of hypoglycaemia in the community and in hospital is medically and economically important, with the potential to generate significant cost savings for healthcare providers at a national level.

Lead Diabetes Specialist Nirse, Ani Kumar, said: “Let’s make this annual opportunity to promote Hypoglycaemia awareness amongst us so we can recognise the signs, treat the symptoms and refer patients to the appropriate diabetes care teams. This is the first time our Trust has signed up for this campaign, so with your support, we can make this bigger and better.”