Endocrine Abstracts

The Nottingham Diabetes web site (www.nottinghamdiabetes.nhs.uk) was launched in January 2002 as an information and education resource for people with diabetes and diabetes care teams in Nottingham. It was developed jointly by the two hospital diabetes centres in Nottingham, designed by an independent web designer and funded by the pharmaceutical industry (with no influence over content or acknowledgement on the site).

The site contains information about local diabetes services, general information about diabetes and advice on specific aspects of care (for example, sick day rules). The Nottingham Diabetes Guidelines for General Practice are down loadable, and there are links to other relevant sites.

The site can be accessed via the web sites of both of the Hospital Trusts in Nottingham. It has been available via search engines (including Google, Yahoo) since late May 2002. Local publicity has been delivered via posters in hospital clinics, flyers sent to patients and doctors and talks to primary care teams.

Between February and June 2002 there were 4763 visits to the site, with usage rising from 691 visits in February to 1334 in June. These figures demonstrate the need for such a resource. Informal feedback has been excellent and we are introducing a formal feedback mechanism in order to improve the site in the future.