Around 10% of the NHS' UK-wide annual budget is spent on the treatment of diabetes and the complications of diabetes, and it is reported that this number is expected to rise over the coming decades. How can the NHS adapt to ensure that it can continue to treat patients with diabetes, and improve their outcomes, in a way that is sustainable long-term?

A team at Cardiff and Vale UHB may have found a way of working that could offer a solution. We chat to Dr. Lindsay George, a consultant diabetologist, about the work he and his team have been doing to begin to move diabetes care out of hospital and into the community. We also talk about how specialist diabetes consultants are establishing better links with the primary care teams across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, which is helping to reduce waiting times for patients, and how, by carefully assessing the types of insulin prescribed to diabetic patients in the community, the health board has been able to fund specialist community diabetes nurses, whose presence has resulted in not only a reduction in the cost of diabetes care but also a dramatic improvement in their patients' ability to manage their condition. 

If you'd like to get in touch, please e-mail us at [email protected] or do so on Twitter @CV_UHB

How would you feel if you visited your GP and they prescribed you a cycle ride or a bout of gardening?

Social prescribing is a way for GPs, nurses, and other primary care professionals to offer people a range of activities and services instead of, or alongside, prescription medication. It's revolutionising community care in southwest Cardiff with other great examples across the city and in the Vale of the Glamorgan, all of which aim to keep people healthier for longer in their homes and communities.

Leading the social prescribing agenda in Cardiff and Vale UHB is Dr. Karen Pardy, a GP at Lansdowne Surgery in Canton, Cardiff. Karen kindly agreed to chat to us for this episode to highlight some of the great examples of the work that she and her team are doing and ultimately, it can keep people from being admitted to hospital. 

Bryn even asks Karen for her opinion on what type of activity she would recommend for him!

If you're interested in some of the opportunities that we discuss, you don't have to have a referral from your GP, you can visit the Dewis Cymru website for an idea of the services and groups that might be in your area. 

If you want to get in touch, you can contact us by e-mailing [email protected] or on Twitter @CV_UHB

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Nearly a century later, antibiotics are one of the biggest weapons in the healthcare arsenal with dozens of different types being prescribed to thousands and thousands of people across the world every day. But are we becoming over-reliant on their use and what would happen if they just stopped working?

To answer this question and to see what the NHS, and Cardiff and Vale UHB specifically, is doing to combat the continual mutation of bacteria which is making them resistant to the drugs we use to treat them, we chat to Dafydd Thomas. Dafydd is a biomedical scientist who specialises in bacteria and who is based at the University Hospital of Wales and the University Dental Hospital. We talk about the science behind the prescribing decisions that healthcare staff make, what would happen if antibiotics stopped working, and how we can all take individual action to help in the fight against bacteria.

I mention this video, which shows the speed at which bacteria mutate to overcome the chemicals in antibiotics and which was the inspiration for this episode when Dafydd used it as part of a presentation he gave at a conference in early 2019. 

If you want to know more or would like to get in touch, e-mail me at [email protected] or contact me on Twitter @CV_UHB

One of the core principles of the NHS is to provide all people with equitable care and a core principle of Cardiff and Vale UHB's strategy is to put the patient at the heart of the decisions we make and the care we give. One person whose work is exemplary in this field is Andy Jones, the lead nurse for surgery and the lead for the care of people with learning disabilities at Cardiff and Vale UHB.

In 2013 it was estimated that across the UK, 1200 adults with learning disabilities die avoidable deaths while in NHS care each year. In this episode, we talk to Andy to learn what steps the health board has been proactively taking to address this statistic.

Andy tells us about how he was moved to action by the findings of an independent inquiry he participated in a number of years ago, what action he has taken in the health board since then, how working with the third sector has helped him begin to improve things, and what more can the NHS can do to adequately meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in society.

If you're affected by the content of this episode, or you would like to get involved with Andy's work and become a Learning Disability Champion, please contact me by emailing [email protected] or on Twitter @CV_UHB. 

Transformation: It's a word which you may have heard in relation to healthcare in Wales but what does it actually mean? What are services transforming from and what will they look like in the future? To begin to answer these huge questions, we chat to Ruth Jordan, the head of Cardiff and Vale UHB's Improvement and Implementation Team. We discuss the health board's ten-year strategy, Shaping Our Future Wellbeing, digital technology, care in the community, and who has the power to make change. It might not be who you expect!

If you're interested in learning more about how things are changing at Cardiff and Vale UHB, please visit shapingourfuturewellbeing.com to meet Wyn, the conceptual patient at the heart of the organisation's decision making, and read about some of the examples of best practice. 

Please like and subscribe to this brand new podcast if you have enjoyed it and consider recommending it to a friend or colleague! If you want to get in touch, please e-mail [email protected] or do so on Twitter @CV_UHB

Welcome to How Healthcare Happens, a brand new podcast from Cardiff and Vale University Health Board all about how the NHS works and all the things you might not know it does. Across this series, we'll talk to a number of inspirational innovators from the one of the largest NHS organisations in the UK to find out how they work and how they're trying to make things better.