Mid and South Essex Combined

Initial response from Basildon and Brentwood CCG (also Thurrock and Mid Essex)

FOI Request: FreeStyle Libre Glucose Monitoring Sensors
Our Reference Number: 1819416

Dear Mr Cahm,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to NHS Basildon and Brentwood CCG on 13th March 2019. The information is currently being collated and a response will be sent to you no later than 20 working days. The deadline is calculated to be 12th April 2019.

If you have any queries regarding your request, please do not hesitate to contact the FOI team on this email address.

A reply from the Diabetes Clinic (15/3)

Dear Nick

Thank you for the letter. I will direct this to our team lead who will answer this when she is next in the office next week.

Hope that is ok.

and a second reply on 18/3:

Hi Nick,

Thank you for your letter. From a DSN point of view we are keen to prescribe. We are bound by our medicines management team and we are awaiting instructions of how and when we can prescribe. This to be in line with our STP.

Also to note this meds management team cover Basildon and Brentwood and Thurrock CCG. The STP we are part of also includes Castle Point and Rochford, Southend and Mid Essex.

Final Response from CCG (now with Policy Document)

We are currently implementing the National Guidance which NHSE published on March 19^th 2019 and a new Value-based Commissioning Policy will be in place from 1^st April 2019.

From 1^st April 2019, patients assessed by specialist teams as meeting the policy criteria will be able to access Freestyle Libre funded by the NHS, with the initial supply coming from the hospital and then prescribing by GPs once they have been authorised to prescribe by the specialists.

The Policy document, patient agreement forms and FAQs will be available on the website from 1^st April 2019.

The policy is published here: Updated Libre Policy Mid and South Essex STP

Comments

Anonymous said…

The first criteria used by the STP appears to be contrary to the national guidance in that they will only prescribe to ‘poorly controlled’ diabetics.
Is it possible to challenge them on this?

23 May 2019 at 12:26

Nick said…

Yes, this has been challenged....the East of England in general have been so confused by their own Prescription Advisory Committee that it's embarrassing. The next push will come when the April prescribing data is released, in about a month's time.

23 May 2019 at 12:29

The CCG Project!

In order to find out the situation around the country for Libre prescribing now that the national policy has been published, I have made the decision to contact many of them to find out their plans. I have arbitrarily chosen to contact all English CCGs that in December 2018 prescribed Libre via Primary Care to less than 5% of their population (and one specific request from a group member). I had hoped this would be a small list, but there are 135 CCGs on the list. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I'm committed to doing this and feeding back. It worked before and hopefully this level of scrutiny will bring similar results. Below is a screenshot of the base document I am sending to each of the CCGs - it has some fields that are merge fields, so don't worry about the brackets and codes in the document (I found a typo, which has now been corrected too) . The major piece of work with respect to this is finding the right person to contact....

August Libre Update - Data, data and more data!

This month's update will be dealt with in two parts, both focusing on data; the first part summarising some data about the prescribing policies across England, the second my usual update on prescriptions fulfilled across the UK. Libre Prescribing Policies and Implementation in England There didn't seem to be an easy way to compile this. I used the Diabetes UK Map to link to the policies and then I cross-checked this with a Google search to see whether there was any more information. I had to do this line by line for each of the 195 CCGs in England - quite a lengthy and tedious process. However, I am pleased with the information arising from the data. Firstly, the headline figures - how many CCGs were funding Libre, how many had denied funding and who were still undecided? There are differences of opinion about these figures as some CCGs have not been clear (Staffordshire CCGs), and some have agreed to fund, but are yet to actually fund due to implement...

Finally an Update!

So, I have finally got the motivation to update my blog. There's probably nobody reading it anymore, but just in case...here goes. What has been happening? Well, I am still honeymooning in terms of my diabetes, so need less insulin than previously. It is proving a bit difficult to judge and I had a bad hypo last week. Basically, I was almost unconscious and Claire had gone out for the evening! Luckily I found some wine gums and came out of it eventually. Last weekend was Josh's thanksgiving. Our church doesn't really approve of christenings of babies whose parents are not both confirmed. As neither of us are, then a thanksgiving was the choice. It turned out to be a lovely service and the small group of people that we had meant that it was a great day. The sun even shone for most of it. This weekend is the Open Day at work. I have helped organise it, including getting a person to create a special newspaper for the day and be there to add pictures and make a live n...

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