Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Optimising management of diabetes in school is critical especially with more children being commenced on intensive insulin regimens. Partnership between families, school and caregivers is essential to enhance safety and satisfaction with the educational experience for students.

Methodology: We gathered information on facilities in schools for children with T1D from our district hospital by telephonic questionnaire. The questions related to presence or not of a designated area at school for blood sugar monitoring (BSM), insulin administration (IA) and personnel present for supervision of IA.

Results: We have 78 school children with T1D aged 5–16 years. 30 children attending 25 primary schools (PS) and 48 attending 23 secondary school (SS); 4 on twice daily injection, 1 on thrice daily regimen, 68 on basal bolus regimen and 5 on CSII. We obtained information on 33 schools and 61 children (23 in PS and 38 in SS). All children had individual care plans.

Of 30% (7/23) of children in PS and 1/38 in SS could not self-inject. Of these, Noon injection was done by parents in 7 cases and school staff in 1 case. All 33 schools had assigned rooms for BSM and IA. This consisted of medical room (21), office (7), injection room (4) and staff room (1).

All children in PS were supervised during IA by a variety of staff including first aid providers (9), teacher or assistants (7), administrative staff (7), school nurse (1) and parent (2) whilst in 11/14 of SS, supervision was present and by school nurses (7), first aiders (6) administrative staff (2) and teacher (1).

Conclusion: Facilities for children with diabetes in school is improving however, support for children who cannot self-inject is mainly provided by parents rather than school staff. Work still needs to be done to address local policies, funding for training to optimise this care.