World-Diabetes-Day - 14 November 2011

The first web chat to coincide with World Diabetes Day took place on the 14 November 2011.

David Gable
Press release - David GableI’m Dr David Gable, consultant in diabetes, endocrinology and general medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. I started work at St Mary’s in 2008 and trained at St George’s.

I also co-chair of the North West London Integrated Care Pilot IT committee. The pilot is designed to help co-ordinate and improve care for people who have diabetes or are over 75 in north west London.

I’m here to answer any of your questions on diabetes. We’re in a very diverse area here is west London, so maybe you want to know more about how ethnicity might affect your chances of getting diabetes. Maybe you want to know about whether your gender makes a difference? Or how about age?

What is a web chat
We use the Cover it Live console for our web chats. It is a free software that enables people to submit questions in real time using an easily accessible web interface. It is a type of internet chat distinguished by its simplicity and accessibility to users who do not wish to take the time to install and learn to use specialized chat software.

Quick facts

  • Across the three sites the diabetic medicine department as a whole sees nearly 10,000 patients annually
  • Across the three sites, the department receives about 120-150 new referrals a month from GPs and other hospitals
    • The specialist foot clinic service at St Mary’s hospital has published literature showing that patients attending that service have the lowest amputation rates recorded anywhere internationally
  • There are 5 consultants across the sites, and 8 diabetes specialist nurses. There is also a nurse consultant that works a day a week at Hammersmith Hospital
  • The Department also runs community based diabetes services in Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham, so that patients can be seen by a consultant, but in a community setting, closer to their homes
  • As part of the integrated care pilot, the department has started sending out it’s team of diabetes specialist nurses to work with GPs in the practices in Acton. The aim of this is to improve community diabetes care

<Back to web chat homepage