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Diabetic feet health

Posted By GillyB@13

"Diabetic feet health"

About: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary / Diabetes

(as the patient),

I am in my 50's with type 2 diabetes. As a diabetic, it is pounded in you to take good care of your feet by the diabetic staff, but they refuse to help you look after them.

I have fibromyalgia and wear and tear in my spine and can’t bend down to cut my nails on put cream on the side and the skin is broken and sore and even though I can’t bend down to touch my toes no one will help you to do these things unless I pay to go private, which as I’m on disability and universal credit I can’t afford to pay.

Unless they will bring back chiropodists to look after the feet, why get staff to tell people to "look after their feet" when some people physically can’t.

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Responses

Response from Kirsten Dickson, Quality Improvement and Assurance Facilitator, Quality Improvement and Assurance Team, NHS Grampian 7 months ago
Kirsten Dickson
Quality Improvement and Assurance Facilitator, Quality Improvement and Assurance Team,
NHS Grampian

Submitted on 05/12/2024 at 17:48
Published on Care Opinion at 17:48

picture of Kirsten Dickson

Thank you for sharing your feedback GillyB@13

Caring for your feet when you have diabetes is, as you have mentioned, very important – but with a disability I can see why self-management isn’t as straight forward as it should be.

I’m sorry this reply is a little late and not from the diabetes service itself. I work in the Quality Improvement and Assurance Team and part of my role is to forward feedback to teams that haven’t got a designated responder on the Care Opinion system, so I’m not directly linked to the diabetic clinic or the podiatry service. I have been trying to find out some more information around foot health and the services that would be available to you. I spoke to the diabetic clinic and the podiatry team and this is the information I have:

The diabetes team in Grampian support people with diabetes to self-manage their condition but have to prioritise those with the greatest need (high or moderate risk) for specialist review. Although direct support with looking after your feet isn’t available at the clinic, they do encourage patients to seek a review from podiatry, via their GP, if their skin is broken - as it sounds like yours is. You can also self-refer to podiatry via this link Contact Us – Diabetes in Grampian (if you scroll down to the bottom of this page and select podiatry you should see links to an information leaflet, a self-referral form and phone numbers for the teams based in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray). Unfortunately, podiatry are not able to offer toenail cutting as a service. I understand this is not ideal, especially for people who do not have the means to seek help privately. The service did forward some link to information which might be helpful:

https://www.nhsgrampiandiabetes.scot.nhs.uk/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/personal-footcare-guidance/pages/3/

If you have any questions, please get in touch I will try my best to find out the answers. I can be contacted by email: kirsten.dickson@nhs.scot or by phone/text: 07885720267. (Any personal contact information that is shared with me in doing so, will not be shared out with our conversation).

Kirsten

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