Switching tens of thousands of people with diabetes to new blood glucose meters will be laborious and add to nurses’ workload, says a diabetes nurse spokeswoman.
Pauline Giles, chair of the Diabetes Nurse Specialists Section of NZNO, said disappointment is her first response to this week’s confirmation by Pharmac that it will be shifting to a sole supplier, the CareSens range, for diabetes blood glucose meters and test strips.
She said the problem would not be the complexity in teaching patients how to use the new meters but taking away people’s choice and the “sheer number” of people involved.
“There is over 200,000 people with diabetes, and that’s a huge number of people who are going to have to access some sort of training.”
Giles said much of this role was likely to fall on practice nurses and community diabetes nurses whose workloads were already heavy.
“They are going to have to stop what they are doing and reprioritise their work to get through this number.”
She said it would be laborious work to swap people over to the new meters and chase up those who don’t respond. “And some people will just not want to change.”
She said Pharmac had responded to the concerns of people with type 1 diabetes using the Accu-Chek Performa Combo meter and insulin pumps plus those using the Freestyle Optium meter. Pharmac has said it will continue funding test strips for five years for people already using those specialist pumps and meters prior to June 1.
Giles said those two groups would have been “hugely disadvantaged” if funding had discontinued. However, she is concerned that the Pharmac decision does not make it clear what blood ketone testing products, which are very important for people with type 1 diabetes, it will fund in the future once it phases out support of the dual-purpose Freestyle Optium meters, which can test for both blood glucose and blood ketones.
Pharmac said the new funding decisions take effect on September 1 but would be phased in over six months. Also in response to feedback, it had added a ‘higher-tech’ blood glucose meter, called CareSens N POP, which included increased memory, backlighting for nighttime use, and other functions sought by consumers. It was to work with the supplier Pharmaco NZ to put in place a training and implementation package that will include training for nurses, pharmacists, and other clinicians and information and training for patients.
Karen Crisp, executive chair of the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand, has said the Guild supported the funding changes as long as there was “comprehensive support in place before the changes take place and an excellent implementation process”.
Chris Baty, president of consumer group Diabetes New Zealand, said the organisation was disappointed by the Pharmac decision.
“A sole supply model introduces untenable risks for people with diabetes, including potential supply chain disruption that may come from relying on only one source for product.”
Also announced by Pharmac was the first nationally consistent funding of insulin pumps, as up till now, some district health boards had funded pumps and some hadn’t. Pharmac is to fund the Animas 2020 pump and was negotiating to source a second pump supplier.
