Acute and community providers in England are being urged to take part in a national survey of bedside inpatient diabetes care, providing insights to improve safety and patient experience for people living with diabetes who are admitted to hospital.
The GIRFT survey of bedside inpatient diabetes care takes place in October 2026 and will create a snapshot of services nationally, including a picture of medication management, glucose monitoring and insulin administration, the impact on patients of their hospital stay, workforce and service provision, and governance.
The new survey follows our inpatient survey carried out in 2024, which highlighted the challenges facing diabetes teams, including a substantial increase in the number of hospital inpatients with diabetes without a corresponding increase in workforce capacity, but didn’t focus on individual patient data.
Alongside a patient-level data collection, the new survey will also include site- level questions to assess diabetes service provision. Learning from the survey will help shape NHS England’s development of a future electronic National Inpatient Diabetes Audit.
What do you need to do?
Participating organisations will take part on one weekday between 12 October and 25 October 2026.
The survey should be undertaken for all adult inpatients with a diagnosis of diabetes on the day of your choosing, which will involve reviewing each patient’s record to respond to questions about them and their admission at the time of the survey. This will include patients receiving care in acute and community inpatient settings, but excluding maternity and mental health services.
In addition to the patient-level survey, each trust site will be asked to complete a questionnaire relating to inpatient diabetes services, staffing and governance arrangements.
The completed patient survey dataset and trust questionnaire should be returned to GIRFT by 30 October 2026.
To sign up to take part, or for more details, please email:
Professor Gerry Rayman, GIRFT joint clinical lead for diabetes, said:
"Since our 2024 survey, the pressures on inpatient diabetes services have increased further. Increasing numbers of inpatients are being treated with newer glucose-lowering therapies, some of which require specific management during acute illness and may be unfamiliar to general ward staff.
In addition, the growing use of diabetes technologies, including continuous glucose monitoring systems, insulin pumps, and Automated Insulin Delivery devices requires specialist knowledge and support, particularly when patients become acutely unwell.
It is essential that we understand the current level of care being provided at the bedside and the resulting patient outcomes, both to support service planning and to inform future improvements."
Professor Partha Kar joint clinical lead for diabetes, added:
"It's time to update our data around the safety issues for people with diabetes who are admitted to hospital, which is a continued area of worry and concern.
This electronic survey is quick and easy to complete, and participating organisations will be able to review and analyse their own data once data collection is complete and compare against GIRFT's national benchmarking.
Please sign up to take part – the more organisations submit their data, the better the insights into how we can improve inpatient diabetes care."
