Diabetes is a serious illness that requires regular follow-up. We provide most of your care within the practice, but we also use specialist teams provided by local hospitals where appropriate.

As part of the routine care we recommend twice yearly checks with the doctor, practice nurses and phlebotomist. More frequent appointments may be required to help you manage co-existing diseases that impact upon your diabetes.

Hospital-based diabetic clinics are moving away from full annual checks to a problem-solving approach. We hope all the tests and examinations required to give you the best possible care will be done by the hospital when you go there. To make sure this happens we would like to see all diabetics, under hospital care, at least once a year at the surgery. The doctor will discuss this with you if necessary.

There is lots of helpful information at the Diabetes UK website about what care to expect. If you feel you are seeing too many doctors and nurses please discuss this at you r next appointment.

At each diabetes check:

1. We want you to see the phlebotomist for a blood test at least once a year we recommend a fasting blood sample so we can measure your cholesterol.

2. We also suggest a 30 minute appointment with the practice nurse for a physical examination. Currently Ruth Raudsepp is our diabetic lead nurse and can provide more specialist information should you wish to discuss aspects of your diabetes with her.

3. Once the blood results and physical examination results are available you should see Dr Morgan for twenty minutes. He has a special interest in diabetes as well as having Type 1 diabetes himself. Although we recommend seeing Dr Morgan other doctors in the surgery are happy to review your condition if you prefer.