Oh, Really..?

Many families from deprived backgrounds are unable to make the most of NHS-provided diabetes technology because they are unable to afford smartphones, charity workers and healthcare professionals have said.

Well, if you believe this, you've never worked in or visited a foodbank - the 'deprived' tend to have smartphones permanently glued to their hands!

But surely there's an alternative to owning a smartphone for the genuinely poor? Reader, there is...

Although CGMs are compatible with receivers that are provided with the devices, healthcare professionals and charity workers have said when managing type 1 diabetes, especially in small children, using CGM devices with smartphones are necessary.

They might be handier, but are they really necessary..? What do they do that the receivers don't? 

Gillian Adams, a paediatric diabetes specialist nurse at Ealing hospital, west London, said using a smartphone, rather than a receiver, with a CGM device was essential for the management of young children with type 1 diabetes.

“It can be distressing and more difficult for a parent to manage their child’s glucose levels with just a receiver, as they can be anxious when the child is out of their sight, and without a smartphone they have no way of being able to track their glucose levels when they are away from them,” she said. “With a receiver, the child has to have it with them at all times, which means that when they are at school, or at nursery, it is only through a smartphone that parents are able to track their glucose levels.”

Sorry, sweetie, but that really doesn't make them essential or necessary. It simply makes them handier to have. And even if they were essential, is this not something that charities could supply? 

Carolyn Goldhill, the founder of the charity Supporting Children with Diabetes, said it had distributed more than 500 smartphones to families with children with type 1 diabetes.

There you go!