Wirral Diabetes Community Team

The Diabetes Community Team bridges the care of patients between primary and secondary care.

Its purpose is to ensure patients whose healthcare needs lie between these two areas can receive the best treatment and support, including:

• Improve patients’ understanding and confidence in managing their diabetes.
• Support improvements in diabetes control and reduce the risk of diabetes-related complications.
• Provide specialist advice and support for patients with more complex diabetes management needs.
• Support patients to make sustainable changes to their diabetes management and lifestyle.
• Provide an additional source of specialist advice for practice nurses and the wider primary care team.
• Help reduce the pressure on practice teams by providing additional specialist support where appropriate.

Team Members

The team is made up of 2 Diabetes Specialist Nurses, 1 Hospital Consultant and 1 GP with Specialist Interest in Diabetes.

• Dr King-Sun Leong (Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology)
• Dr Lesley Hodgson (General Practitioner – Diabetes Speciality)
• Karen Leong (Diabetes Specialist Nurse)
• Laura McGinty (Diabetes Specialist Nurse)

Clinics

The team runs 6 clinics a week, both virtual and face to face.

• St Georges Medical Centre, Wallasey
• Leasowe Medical Centre

Who is this service for?

The service is available to patients over the age of 18 who require further assessment and management of their diabetes. These may include patients who need escalation of treatment with insulin (but are not acutely ill) and newer therapies. For full referral criteria, please link below.

Exclusions

Please note that not every patient is suitable for this service, and the following  groups of patients are excluded:

• Pregnant patients,
• Patients with foot ulcers,
• Patients requiring insulin pump therapy
• Patients who are acutely ill

*PLEASE SEE THE LINK BELOW FOR REFERRAL CRITERIA*

Referral forms for this service are shown below.