PRESS RELEASE

Friday, August 21, 2020

 

Invitation to join the English Diabetes Footcare Network

 

Diabetes foot health professionals working in England have been invited to join a new network.

The English Diabetes Footcare Network (EDFN) is an online community dedicated to the improvement of diabetes footcare in England, supported by the College of Podiatry.

Benefits of joining include the dissemination of best practice, a professional forum, education, webinars and podcasts. The network will also share the latest news, publish monthly newsletters and stage an annual conference with awards.

It was formed by a group of interested diabetes foot champions, including Dr Paul Chadwick, Professor Mike Edmonds, Alistair McInnes, Richard Leigh and Christian Pankhurst, who developed a steering group to establish a network across England.

Chair Richard Leigh, who is a Consultant Podiatrist from Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, said: “If you are involved in diabetes footcare, join our network and become part of a new community dedicated to improving care and reducing amputations.

“We are passionate about raising the standards of diabetes footcare and believe this network will provide a much-needed platform to share the best ways of working across the country, pick up examples of best practice and provide a single voice for our community.”

In England, the development of sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) and the bids for NHS England Diabetes Fund for multidisciplinary diabetes footcare team (MDFT) transformation, with its focus on foot disease, has led to development of innovations in practice and new ways of working.

However, there was no robust mechanism for sharing these new ways of working across England and the wider UK, with developments and duplication of work occurring at regional levels among the 12 NHS England clinical networks, without their benefit being felt more widely.

In response, a scoping exercise was carried out by The College of Podiatry and Diabetes UK and the need for a national network was identified.

The first meeting of the English Diabetes Footcare Network was held in London at the College of Podiatry in March 2019.

The network is now launching an ambitious national improvement programme to drive up standards of diabetes footcare in England.

To register for the network, visit edfn.org/register.