Children with type 1 diabetes in Ireland are not receiving optimal care, due to a lack of commitment and urgency by Department of Health and HSE officials, it has been claimed.

According to the national diabetes charity, Diabetes Ireland, a new model of care for young people with type 1 diabetes was launched in 2015 by the then Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, however it has failed to deliver on its promises.

The ‘Model of Care for Children & Young People with Type 1 Diabetes' provided a blueprint for the development of a quality paediatric type 1 diabetes service. The aim of this was to put children and their families at the centre of their care plan.

It included the establishment of centres of excellence in different regions, which would provide support to outreach centres in those areas. These centres of excellence were to be based in Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Drogheda and Dublin.

However to date, several of these centres have unfilled consultant posts, even where funding is available, and existing teams are very understaffed.

For example, in Waterford, a vacant consultant post was advertised last year, however patients face a wait of over six months before interviews are to be held, which could result in the post not being filled for a further year.

Meanwhile, following the transfer of a consultant from Sligo Hospital to LimericK University Hospital, nothing has so far been done to recruit a replacement in Sligo.

"It is very frustrating to see posts for which funding has been made available, still vacant two years on," commented consultant paediatric endocrinologist and Diabetes Ireland chairperson, Prof Hilary Hoey.

The charity pointed out that many of the parents whose children attend these regional centres are very concerned about the level of care available, and an increasing number are attempting to transfer their children to Dublin hospitals.

However, these hospitals already have caseloads that are in excess of what they can deal with.

"With the increasing numbers of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes being treated in Dublin hospitals, we are struggling to provide optimal care. We urgently require three new paediatric diabetes teams in Dublin to deliver the high quality care which we know is associated with much better long-term outcomes for our patients," explained Prof Nuala Murphy, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist at Temple Street Children's Hospital.

The charity noted that all of the Dublin centres have long waiting lists made up of children who want access to insulin pump technology. It said that while HSE funding for these devices is available for all patients, in many instances, there are still long delays in accessing them because of staffing issues.

Prof Murphy explained that insulin pump initiation requires intensive training prior to pump start and intense early support in the first three months of use. However, ‘staff deficits result in prolonged waiting times' to access these pumps.

"For similar reasons, structured education programmes for all children with diabetes and their families, which have been developed, are not uniformly delivered nationwide.

"It is very difficult with current staffing to provide the high quality care we want to deliver and as a result it is difficult to attract and retain highly qualified consultants who are also being chased by health services from other countries who can offer a better work/life balance and better working conditions," Prof Murphy commented.

Diabetes Ireland emphasised that the model of care still has the support of the diabetes community, ‘as it provides a strong platform on which to build a high quality service'.

"Right now, we want to see posts for which funding is available to be advertised with the necessary support to attract high quality candidates as a matter of urgency and looking forward, we need to see new funding being made available by the Government to enable implementation of the plan it endorsed in 2015," Prof Hoey added.

For more information on Diabetes Ireland, click here