Lead Diabetes Specialist Nurse, North East Essex Diabetes Service (NEEDS)
As one of our Clinical Champions, Chris will be developing a nurse-led outpatient diabetes service to improve engagement whilst increasing patient knowledge and the uptake in the completion of care processes. Establishing a more inclusive diabetes clinic would enable the service to focus on those who are not currently achieving treatment targets and work closely with them to help improve understanding, engagement and long-term patient outcomes.
Background
Chris is a Lead Diabetes Specialist Nurse at North East Essex Diabetes Service (NEEDS) working with adults living with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes, in addition to supporting group education and the development of services.
Prior to moving across to Bury St Edmunds, Chris worked within diabetes services for approximately 12 years where he was part of the development and implementation of a new in-patient service for diabetes in Ipswich. During this time, Chris assisted the team to reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired foot pressure ulcers by the development and implementation of the ‘Ipswich Touch Test’.
He has supported projects to both demonstrate temporal patterns of hypoglycaemia within hospital and create tools to enable other hospitals to both monitor and reduce this risk. To expand his own knowledge, Chris worked in both community and outpatient services.
Currently Chris is part of an established multidisciplinary diabetes team that is building services to meet both an expanding patient population and modern patient needs.
As a dad of 2 young boys, a slightly addicted runner who himself has type 1 diabetes, Chris is passionate about providing a quality, individual diabetes service that has the time and resources to help patients manage their own diabetes in a way that allows them to excel in whatever they want to do.
