Embracing Summer with a Positive Outlook

So on a personal level I love the summer and I think every day is quite an optimistic day and I get up happy in the morning and I'm quite happy to be, whether I'm at work or not at work, every day is a happy day during the summer. So I think on a personal level I'm always enthusiastic about the warm weather and about the good food and the fruit and everything that the summer brings. I think with regards to patients, I think we've got to deal with them on an individual basis and understand what it is that makes them feel less enthusiastic about the summer, what it is that concerns them. If it's concerns about blood glucose levels, then it's about letting them maybe speak to diabetes specialist nurses or sometimes putting them back in touch with the dieticians or directing them to suitable websites where they may be able to get information about what foods they might be able to eat or what they can do to help manage their blood glucose levels. Sometimes it's worth putting them in front of one of our consultant colleagues who can maybe give them a little bit of direction and advice if they're particularly taking insulin or similar drugs about you know whether they need to adjust insulin levels or anything like that for blood glucose control. Certainly motivating patients to stay hydrated, to perhaps avoid very very hot parts of the day, stay in the shade you know with clothing that's going to be cool but not necessarily be where they might be exposing vast areas of their body and their skin particularly if they are light-skinned or they have problems with neuropathy so that they don't actually get sunburn. I think for each patient it's an individual thing and there's a lot of help out there there's a lot of information out there and it's about taking that time to speak to them and understand what their individual challenges are and find what actually makes them happy so that we can use those tools to allow them or to maybe think about the summit a little bit more of a positive way and everyone is different so it is about treating each patient as an individual and then talking to them or you know encouraging them on an individual basis and certainly I'm in a very fortunate position because I see my patients quite regularly so it helps me to keep in touch with them and where necessary if I'm concerned about somebody then I will certainly make a phone call and see how they're actually doing.