There are approximately 1,700 children under the age of 5 living with Type 1 diabetes in England and Wales, and 110 in Scotland. As the steepest rise in diagnoses of Type 1 diabetes is in this age group, the number of children who have Type 1 diabetes in nurseries is set to increase.
Children with Type 1 diabetes should be able to attend a nursery of their parents' choice, and nurseries should be expected to make all the reasonable care arrangements to care for the child appropriately using existing staff and budgets.
Key points:
- All nurseries should make all the reasonable care arrangements required to support children with Type 1 diabetes.
- Children with Type 1 diabetes should have access to a nursery place of their parent’s choice and the nursery should also be able to provide suitably trained staff to look after the child with Type 1 diabetes.
- All nursery staff caring for children with Type 1 diabetes should receive suitable training from a Paediatric diabetes specialist nurse (PDSN) and receive additional training as appropriate to meet a child's needs.
- No parent should be required to go into nursery to provide for their child's diabetes care or be made to feel obliged to support their child during their time in nursery.
We developed this position statement through a review of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework, literature review of the available evidence from international studies and brought this together with our findings from our engagement work with parents of children with Type 1 diabetes and healthcare professionals in the UK.
Download our position statement on Caring for children with Type 1 diabetes in nurseries (PDF, 203KB)
