A diabetes nurse has been recognised for her work to help young people living with Type 1 diabetes to live their lives to the full.
Photo credit: Kate Stanworth and Anna Gordon
Claire Vine, who was diagnosed with the condition as a child, is Head of Specialist Services for community health services in mid and south Essex at Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT).
As part of her role, she manages the South East Essex Community Diabetes Service, which cares for around 3,000 patients living in Southend, Rochford, Benfleet, Hadleigh, Thundersley and Canvey. She is also one of their patients.
Before taking up her current post, Claire was on secondment to EPUT and set up the Growing Up Sweet project with her colleague Laurence Chester to improve diabetes education for teenagers with Type 1. It was a collaboration with the diabetes specialist teams at Provide Community and North East London NHS Foundation Trust.
Claire received a grant for the one-year project from the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing Community’s (QICN) Nursing Innovation Programme, which is funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing.
She was recognised for the programme’s success at the QICN’s recent awards ceremony last month (28 November).
Claire said: “The aim was to try and get teenagers to better manage their diabetes and we decided to deliver education in a different way.
“So instead of getting them to come into a classroom, we invited them to Go Ape in Chelmsford to teach them how to manage their blood sugar level while climbing a tree, and an evening at Bunker 19 in Southend to play golf, pool and darts with people living with Type 1 diabetes.”
Fifty young people and their parents or carers took part in a mix of online and face-to-face education sessions between April 2024 to April 2025.
These are now part of the support offered to patients and cover a wide range of issues including exercise, driving, alcohol, diet and carbohydrate management.
Two young patients help the diabetes team to design and deliver the classes.
People with Type 1 diabetes remain under specialist care throughout their life, and Growing Up Sweet aimed to help teenagers and their families transition from hospital-based children’s diabetes services to community-based adult services.
This can be an anxious time as teenagers navigate managing the condition on their own.
To help with the transition, diabetes specialists from both the children and adult services now attend the clinics for teenagers aged 14 to 19.
Patients are also encouraged to bring a friend along. Claire said: “If you’re on a night out and don’t feel well, it’s likely your friend will be there with you, either panicking or asking you what’s going on.”
Claire was five years old when she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
She said: “When I was first diagnosed my parents were told at that time my future would not be very bright because insulin has only been around for just over 100 years and we didn’t know as much about how to manage diabetes as we do now.
“I made it my mission to lead as normal a life as I possibly could, and I can honestly say that diabetes hasn’t stopped me doing anything I wanted to do.
“I have gone to college and university, I come to work, I have got two children.
“Helping others is what I’m most passionate about, especially teenagers.
“When you’re trying to find your path in life, as long as you try to manage diabetes the best way you can, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be any different to anybody else.”
Find out more about the South East Essex Community Diabetes Service here.
Diabetes UK has more information about living with diabetes on its website.