Rachel Torkington-Stokes: Identifying and managing foot related problems

Our workshop is the challenges of patients with diabetes and what we focused on in our workshop today is the diabetic foot. So with it being a leg ulcer conference, on the end of a leg is a foot, so we thought it was a fantastic opportunity as a podiatrist to come and share practice about some hints and tips that as a leg ulcer nurse or podiatrist or other healthcare professional that you could through the workshop pick up those hints and tips which would help you identify potential patients that later on may have problems with diabetes. What we know with diabetes is there is neuropathy where they lose feeling and often this is the biggest problem because patients aren't told or get told from their own bodies that there is a problem. So if you can inspect the foot regularly, so the three tips about looking at sensation, observing the foot shape and testing the pulses and as leg ulcer nurses dealing with Doppler is very confident in their skillset can use a Doppler to test circulation and sensation in the foot and those three things would really help a practitioner give valuable information to their patients about foot health. So our key topic within the workshop is the diabetic foot and we'll be looking at challenges of ulceration but most importantly stopping those feet on that road to ulceration because what we do know sadly is often after ulceration is amputation and the impact that can have for patients' quality of life. So the key takeaway from our workshop is about offering hints and tips, sharing best practice and looking at ways in which moving forward people can have the best foot care out there.