NHS Lothian named DESMOND Team of the Year 2024.
Members of the Lothian team Jon Delaney and Angela Carvalho receiving the Team of the Year award
With their application entitled “Together Everyone Achieves More”, NHS Lothian’s DESMOND team were the winners of the Team of the Year award at the Celebrating DESMOND Awards 2024, which were held at DESMOND’s head office at the Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC).
This award gives recognition to a team that has been exceptional at delivering high-quality education to people with or at risk of type 2 diabetes and strives to be the best at what they do.
The team consists of 20 DESMOND and six Let’s Prevent Diabetes Educators, who offer group education and digital programmes for adults with and at risk of type 2 diabetes. NHS Lothian have developed an educator team that covers a broad range of expertise including Dietitians, Dietetic Support Workers, GPs, Nurses, Exercise Specialist and a Wellbeing and Physical Activity Coordinator. Alongside the clinical staff Lothian have an established dedicated administrative team that are pivotal to the service’s success.
The NHS Lothian team currently covers four different geographical areas with a population of over 860,000 people. In 2023/24 they received 3,300 referrals managed through a single point of triage, including self-referrals to help reduce barriers in accessing education.
This high volume of referrals is a challenge that the team has met and overcome through an outpatient redesign. All referrals now go onto a patient management system, called ‘TRAK’, which has had a positive impact on the service, allowing more efficient patient administration and waiting list management.
Currently offering sessions both virtually and in-person, the team have also committed to running sessions at a wide variety of times across 14 locations to accommodate the schedules of attendees; plus, are passionate about the use of MyDESMOND ensuring that those who can’t come to group have access to evidence-based education, as well as to provide ongoing support and guidance for those who do come to a group programme. Together they aim for maximum patient engagement by providing education to their patient at the right place and at the right time.
The team strives to be the best at what they do by ensuring that all groups are booked to maximum capacity. They use a short notice waiting list to utilise any last-minute cancellations.
Meeting regularly as a team ensures that there is continuous learning and development, to enable high quality patient education.
Nominator, Bree Luke, Weight Management and Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Team Lead, shares how winning the award has boosted team morale: “DESMOND is very important in providing the patients of NHS Lothian with education for type 2 diabetes.
“Winning the award has showcased our team's hard work across several different platforms. The team are very proud to have won this award, and it has increased staff confidence and team spirit. We have our award sitting in our office in prime position to remind us of our achievement every day.”
Susan Wight, Advanced Dietetic Practitioner in the NHS Lothian’s DESMOND team, adds: "We are delighted our hard work supporting patients with newly diagnosed diabetes has been recognised nationally with the DESMOND Team of the Year award.
“Our whole team are dedicated to making the DESMOND sessions we run a great experience for our patients and having our hard work acknowledged has been a real boost for us all! We're looking forward to building on this success and continuing to help the people of Lothian."
The team’s participant feedback confirms that their hard work is paying off, with people saying that the Educators are extremely friendly and down to earth and that they find the social aspects of the programme make it enjoyable, as well as educational.
Alison Northern, LDC Implementation Lead at the DESMOND head office, explains: “The passion and dedication of the NHS Lothian team is clear to see; they continually strive to meet the growing needs of their local population. After years of experience offering our DESMOND and Let’s Prevent Diabetes programmes across such a large patch, it was an honour to be able to celebrate their hard work and commitment with the Team of the Year award. Huge congratulations”.