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NHS / Ninewells Dundee
Sweet talk - support for kids with diabetes.


Service design, build and clinical trial

Sweet talk. A service to help young children manage their diabetes in a modern and effective way bringing them closer to their primary care support as well as the wider community of friends and family and using simple communication tools like SMS.

The service was designed, built and hosted by the SEA. Working with Doctors from Ninewells Hospital, Dundee Scotland a full scale medical trial was completed over a 1 year period.

The service used the basic ideas developed in the strategy of CBT - cognitive behaviour therapy - together with expert content co-developed by the medical team and the SEA. The service was delivered through initial consultation with the GP, setting individual goals with each patient and then delivering specific messages to patients mobiles with SMS. Patients could respond and these messages were relayed to the GP’s pc via the web based part of the service. This idea to deliver an ongoing health intervention as a ‘subscription’ service had the following key results:

* Statistically significant (14%) improvements in glycaemic control, the key measure for improved diabetes management amongst the group randomised to intensive insulin therapy. * Over 80% of patients felt that it had helped their self-management
* Over 90% want to continue on the service at the end of the trial

You can get in touch here