Diabetes

The Alder Hey Diabetes service cares for children and young people with any form of diabetes until their 19th birthday.

The Alder Hey diabetes service is the largest paediatric Diabetes Service in the North West. The service currently provides care for over 420 children and young people with diabetes. The number of patients cared for by the team has risen in recent years, reflecting a national increase in paediatric diabetes as well as the extended provision of care until 19 years of age if it is desired.

The majority of our patients have Type 1 Diabetes, a smaller number have type 2 diabetes and rare forms of diabetes - check out our Information and Guidelines page for more. Care of children with Cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) is provided by the paediatric endocrinology consultants and supported by the diabetes nursing team.

Our specialist team includes Doctors, nurse specialists, dieticians and psychologists who work together to provide holistic care. We aim to educate and support our patients and families in the management of their diabetes to enable them to maximise their potential, and lead happy and fulfilling lives. We will:

• Work in partnership with children and families to achieve the best possible health and future outcomes.
• Offer individual care using intensive diabetes treatment regimens, adapted to suit each child and young person’s needs.
• Offer timely and appropriate education and support from diagnosis through to young adulthood.
• Enable young people to successfully transfer from our care to a young adult health care provider of their choice.

We hold multidisciplinary clinics on most days of the week, with every patient being invited to attend four times a year, one appointment of which will be an annual review appointment. From the age of 16 patients are invited to enter our transition programme to our partner hospitals in Liverpool.

The diabetes nursing team offer ad hoc appointments for review as required and in conjunction with the diabetes psychology team we have recently started to offer a ‘High HbA1c’ clinic for patients aged between 5 and 12 years old who require extra support to achieve good control.

Individual clinic appointments are offered by the diabetes dietetic and psychology services as they are required.

We provide ongoing education through regular contact and guideline updates as well as the Goals of Diabetes Education programme which is currently delivered at the Annual Review clinic appointment.

We support a range of insulin delivery and monitoring technologies and are constantly evaluating new equipment to provide to our patients.