DAFNE Courses

My niece (who is also a Type 1) is trying to get on a DAFNE course - she knows how well I got on after my course. Her local hospital (the Medway Maritime Hospital) runs DAFNE courses which are one day a week for five weeks, rather than the Monday to Friday course which I did. This doesn't seem to be a good way of learning to me - surely you lose the continuity of five consecutive days of instruction.

Is this the way DAFNE courses are being run now?

Interesting......

I would say the 5 consecutive days is more effective also but it would seem that there are a lot of type 1s that would fins the 5 week approach a lot more flexible, which is good as DAFNE can reach a lot more people that way......

The curriculum may need to be re jigged as it wouldn't be wise to send patients away without them having at least the basics on dose adjustment..

Also a lot of people finish the course still trying to pin down there doses, the 5 week approach might see people actually getting there dose right and also being able to share how they done it with fellow students.....

Just some of my thought though.......PROS and CONS...

Hi Alan,

One of the key projects within the DAFNE NIHR programme grant, was to evaluate the full DAFNE curriculum delivered 1 day per week over 5 weeks, compared with the standard 5 consecutive days.

There were 7 centres involved in this research programme which has only just completed the final 1-yr follow-up so results won't be available until next year. However, some of these centres have continued to offer 5-week courses to people who for whatever reason have not been able to attend a week-long course. To my knowledge this particular centre is not one that participated in the research so it may be a different programme that they are offering.

I don't know if there are any users online who did the 5-week DAFNE who wish to comment, but it seems that the feedback from both Educators and participants was positive and it's possible that in time you may be able to choose whether you do your course over 5 consecutive days, or 5 weeks.

Carolin

Alan, who told you that Medway were running DAFNE ? The reason I ask is they were a DAFNE Centre but dropped out, as did my centre East Kent. Unfortunately in Kent they like to invent their own education programmes so as well as modifying DESMOND and calling it DEREK, they have also 'dropped'
DAFNE and come up with 'KATIE' ( which I'm still trying to get information on).
It would not suprise me if Meday have also invented their own course, it should NOT be called DAFNE however since it is not. Let us know if you find out what they are doing....

Mark, you're right - it's not DAFNE, Medway doesn't do DAFNE anymore. They've got what they call the Patient Education Programme and it's 4 one day courses, spread over 4 weeks. Sorry I got the information wrong - I've not been able to speak directly with my niece about this - I get the details from her mother.

I think they still do DAFNE courses at Maidstone - my local hospital. Would my niece be able to get on a course run by a Healthcare Trust (or whatever they're called now) outside her area?

hmm, interesting question I'm not sure if you can do DAFNE out of area since I think you may have to be referred. Carolin can probably answer this if she reads this post, if not I will ask DAFNE Central if there is a way of this happening. I suspected it was not DAFNE, I'm in East Kent and we have now lost DAFNE in favour of KATIE (??) so people here are in the same position.

Hi Alan,

Due to funding issues (sometimes known as the postcode lottery?! ), some DAFNE Centres will not take referrals from outside of their own catchment area, however it may be worth your niece asking her GP if they can refer her to Maidstone for her diabetes care so she can access DAFNE.

It's not ideal, but I think we're a very long way off DAFNE being available to all.

I'd urge everyone, if you haven't already done so, to sign up to the DUAG e-petition (see homepage) and to pass this on to all friends, family, colleagues, in fact everyone in your email address book. They need 100,000 signatures to stand a chance of getting this raised for debate in Parliament!

All the best,

Carolin

Hello Carolin
I spoke to the Diabetes Centre in Maidstone hospital and they told me that they would be willing to accept somebody outside their catchment area providing they were referred by their GP - as you say. They added that the referred patient would then go on the waiting list for the DAFNE course and the current waiting time is 1 Year! OUCH!!

We certainly need to get as many signatures as possible on that e-petition for more funding. I've just checked and there have only been 1708 signatures so far.

Alan

It seems that my niece's GP wouldn't refer her to Maidstone for the DAFNE course. He told her that there is a suitable course at the Medway called MINTE, which she has been referred to. It's 4 one day courses spread over 4 weeks.

We've no idea what MINTE stands for - my best guess is Medway INTernal Education - a sort of cover-all for all their courses..
My first guess was Medway Is Near the Thames Estuary.

Alan, seems it is called MIMINT1E ( boy do they need a new marketing person ) but is as you describe. So what happened to choice in the NHS ? you can choose a hospital for an operation (supposedly ) but not your Diabetes education. A real shame but hopefully any Diabetes education is better than none. I hope the course goes well and your niece gets some real benefit out of it.