A community diabetes programme, developed to answer the needs of patients with Type 2 diabetes who had poor access to community diabetes programmes, has been extended.

CODE (Community Orientated Diabetes Education), which was part-funded by the Health Service Executive, was implemented across 26 centres in Ireland in 2007 and was run over a six month period. Over the course of this period, participants attended five group sessions where they gained vaulable education to help them make more informed decisions about their diabetes.

The Diabetes Federation of Ireland recently launched a report on the programme which found that it had helped participants to significantly improve the self-management of their diabetes. It also found that over half of the participants of the course had made positive behavioural changes that would help improve their overall health, with many participants losing weight and reducing their cholesterol.

One of the most startling findings of the report was that a total of 41 per cent of participants in the CODE programme reported that they did not receive ongoing support for treatment of their Type 2 diabetes. Consultant Endocrinologist, Professor Seamus Sreenan described this finding as "alarming" and said that it demonstrated a clear service provision gap in meeting the needs of diabetes patients throughout the country. "|It is essential that diabetes patients receive ongoing treatment which must include seeing primary and hospital based specialists on a regular basis," he said.

Overall, the findings of the report were very positive and following the success of the programme, CODE is now being extended into 2008 by the Diabetes Federation of Ireland.

Commenting on the overall success of the programme, Mallow based GP Dr David Molony said, "Feedback from my patients during our programme was positive. The 16 patients on teh course were delighted to have such a well structured education course happening right on their doorstep. As well as having the support of meeting people with similar health issues, they were learning from each other and this hopefully will continue into teh future. the course is excellent and all diabetes patients should have access to chronic care diabetes management programmes in primary and secondary care."

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