How often should you have Foot Checks with Diabetes?

So, when you have diabetes, if you have an annual foot check, hopefully as part of your annual foot check, you'll be told your risk status. If you're told that you have low risk, so there's no problems with your feet, you have no problems with your blood supply, no problems with your nerve supply. People don't need to see a podiatrist regularly unless you wish to or unless you're having podiatry treatment for another reason. So people with low risk are quite happy to cut their own nails, to look after their feet themselves and keep themselves healthy that way. If you're told that you're at risk, so you have some problem, maybe you have some degree of neuropathy, you're not quite feeling things like you should, or you have some degree of circulation issues, so the blood supply isn't getting to your feet quite like it should, or returning from your feet like it should, or you've had a previous problem, you've had a previous ulcer or a previous surgery on your feet, then we might want to keep an eye on you a little bit more than maybe just relying on you seeking help when you have a problem. So in that case I would perhaps want you to see a podiatrist in community, probably every three or four months at the maximum but maybe a little bit more frequently if perhaps you're struggling to reach your feet or maybe can't see them quite as reliably as you as you should or we would want you to. So maybe we'd want to keep you under surveillance a bit more often and certainly a community podiatrist would be the way to go. If you're high risk or you've got a current problem then obviously we'd want you to be in a little bit more of an an individualized sort of program of care with maybe a more specialized practitioner. So you might see a vascular nurse or a vascular podiatrist if you have a circulation problem. You might see a vascular surgeon or a vascular team at the hospital or in community if again, you're having problems with your circulation. If you're having problems with diabetes, you might be part of a diabetes multidisciplinary team. might want to see you, so either at the hospital or if you have them in your community area, or you might see a specialised podiatrist, again either in community through your GP or to local health centre or in a hospital. And we'd want you again to be seeing people probably more regularly than perhaps if you'd have no problems. So perhaps every eight to ten weeks as a maximum maybe a little bit more frequently than that if you've got an acute problem. Obviously if you've got an acute problem, if you've got an ulcer, if you've got an infection in the bone, if you've got a problem with any other aspect of the foot, if you're needing any sort of intensive treatment for a foot problem, we want you to see a specialist more frequently. So that might be weekly, it might be twice weekly, it might be fortnightly. You might share that care with a practice nurse or a district nurse or a community nurse who comes and sees you at home or sees you in a local health centre, you might share that care with your GP but certainly we'd want you to see some sort of specialist care and if you've got an acute problem in the immediate then by all means access your specialist team, your surgical team, your medical team, your GP or A&E or your walking centre emergency department because again the risk with infection or acute problems in the feet can become very serious very quickly. So there are different tiers of treatment and they vary with your sort of immediate requirement but there are certainly ways that we can get people in quickly and there are ways that we can keep an eye on people in the long term.