Young people

This section is about caring for young people who have diabetes:

Introduction

NHS Diabetes commissioned a survey to establish the number of children and young people under 18 with diabetes in England with the aim of using the results to inform and improve diabetes care.  The survey, published in 2009 as the report ‘Growing up with diabetes’, established that there were a total of 15,408 school age (5 to15 years) children and young people with diabetes in England with a further 5,177 16 and 17 year olds (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 2009, p.17). Some information was also collected in Wales and there are 1,373 0-17 year old children and young people with diabetes on the Wales Diabetes Register (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 2009, p.23).

Although incidence of Type 2 diabetes in children and young people is increasing, the survey found that “it is reassuring that the number of children and young people with Type 2 diabetes is still low" (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 2009, p.25)

Young people with diabetes have special and complex needs. The challenges posed by this and concerns regarding variations in the delivery of care and the outcomes were explored by a working group and reported in 'Making every young person with diabetes matter' (Department of Health 2007c). The report makes recommendations in areas such as workforce, services and organisation of care.

The following sections on key issues and the practice examples and case studies highlight some of the complexities and special needs of young people with diabetes.

References

Full details of the bracketed citations in the text above and, in many cases, links to the actual documents are available in the reference list within this resource. Go to the Reference list.