Back to blog

CASE STUDY: The unmet needs of patients with poorly controlled diabetes who are experiencing deprivation

Written by Gemma Greenacre, Salaried GP/ Clinical Fellow, 30/08/2022

The evidence support enquiry

Reason for enquiry

In my role as Clinical Fellow for Sherwood PCN, I was asked to look at an area of the PCN service specification to ‘Utilise data on health inequalities to identify a population within the PCN experiencing inequality in health provision and/or outcomes….[and] begin engagement with the selected population to understand the gaps in, and barriers to their care’. And then to define an approach to identifying and address the unmet needs of this population.

I chose to look at the unmet needs of patients with poorly controlled diabetes who are experiencing deprivation.

In order to evidence the needs specific to this group of patients I asked the library to undertake a search for existing evidence on barriers to accessing care and any interventions that had successfully addressed these unmet needs.

What the Evidence Support Specialist did

I was provided with a summary of trials and articles from a variety of sources which gave an excellent overview of studies or trials that have already been undertaken in this area.

Impact of input from the Evidence Support Services

Immediate impact

I was able to use the information given to me by the library to provide an evidence base to back up my choice of topic for my project. The information confirmed that it was well documented that low socioeconomic status was correlated with poor control of type 2 diabetes mellitus and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes complications.

The articles also gave me an excellent starting point to consider how to direct the project and possible interventions to consider to help meet the unmet needs identified.

Probable future impact

I am now reaching the concluding stages of the project, and have been able to meet my goal to identify the unmet needs of this cohort and am now developing the actions from this to look at how these needs are met.

The potential impact of this is that we can provide interventions to improve the diabetic control for this cohort and reduce future complications which not only has an impact for the individual patient, but also significant potential cost savings to the PCN.