Patient organisation comments

Advice

A representative from Diabetes UK gave the following comments.

People with type 2 diabetes increasingly use apps to support self‑management of their condition. The d‑Nav technology could offer benefit to people with type 2 diabetes because calculations involved in administering insulin can be complicated, especially when people use different insulin to carbohydrate ratios at different times of the day. Additionally, an individual's insulin dosage requirements can change over time, making it difficult to calculate how much insulin they should administer. Decisions on insulin dosing are currently made during clinician appointments 1 to 4 times a year. Because insulin dosing needs to be updated more frequently than this, people often struggle to meet their target glycaemic range and HbA1c.

The d‑Nav technology could reduce patient burden of calculating insulin dosages and could also lead to fewer clinician appointments and improve quality of life. The technology could particularly benefit those who have difficulties with the numeracy involved in calculating insulin doses and those who struggle to attend clinical appointments because of geography, work or disability. However, the key limitations are that the technology needs a minimum level of digital skill and access to a compatible mobile phone. Clinicians also need to be trained to support patients using d‑Nav. Using the technology may be challenging for those with a visual impairment or for those with a learning disability.