Trust picks up innovation prize at Our Health Heroes Awards

Pioneering work by University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust that allowed diabetes patients to manage their own sugars has been recognised with a national award.

The Trust picked up the NHS digital innovation prize at the Skills for Health Our Health Heroes Awards held at the Science Museum in London.

Believed to be the only Trust nationally to offer glucose monitoring devices at scale to patients hospitalised with Covid-19, UHCW were praised highly by judges for the rapid deployment of Freestyle Libre devices, which greatly freed up nursing time.

At the peak of the pandemic devices were given to more than 350 inpatients, reducing the time spent on glucose monitoring by an estimated average of 112-168 minutes per day shift per ward.

In a survey, 94 per cent of inpatients reported no challenges with sensor application and 87 per cent reported they preferred the flash glucose system to finger-prick monitoring.

Timothy Robbins, NIHR Clinical Lecturer at UHCW, said: “Our ambition is to provide world class care to people with diabetes.

“Effectively implementing technology is central to this and our team were delighted to be able to support both vulnerable patients and hard pressed nursing teams during this project."

Following the success of the scheme, UHCW has secured a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust grant to explore the possibility of using glucose monitoring devices nationally and is hoping to develop a consensus statement supported by organisations such as ABCD, Diabetes UK, YDEF and DISN in support of this.

John Rogers, Chief Executive of Skills for Health, which delivers the Our Health Heroes Awards, added: “A huge congratulations to the team at UHCW.

“Without the wider healthcare workforce that Our Health Heroes Awards aims to recognise and celebrate, our NHS would grind to a halt.”