Understanding Insulin

Understand prescribing and using insulin

The current spend on diabetes care by the NHS is estimated to be £1.6 million pounds per hour. 80% of this is spent on managing diabetes complications, the risk of which can be significantly reduced through effective blood glucose control using insulin.

This course will increase your knowledge about insulin covering safe prescribing, effective clinical use and how different insulins work. If you are a healthcare professional it will equip you with the skills to help you reduce insulin-related errors or if you have diabetes it should show you why insulin is so important for living well. The course won a 2020 Quality in Care Diabetes award.

This course has been primarily created for healthcare professionals to help reduce concerns around prescribing and managing insulin. However it might be also of interest to people with diabetes who do not have regular access to a healthcare professional and who want to find out more about how insulin works.

• What is insulin and what is its relationship to diabetes?
• Welcome to the course
• What is insulin?
• What is diabetes?
• How the body controls blood glucose concentrations
• Summary activities
• How insulin works and types of insulin available for clinical use
• Welcome to week 2
• How insulin works and what happens in diabetes
• Diabetic emergency
• Types of insulin available for clinical use
• Summary activities
• Prescribing, administering and safe and correct uses
• Welcome to week 3
• Clinical indications for using insulin
• Administration of insulin
• Summary activities
• Factors affecting insulin performance and side effects
• Welcome to week 4
• Factors affecting insulin performance
• Side effects of insulin
• Summary activities