Which healthcare providers treat Diabetic Foot problems?

Okay, so there are a number of different people that might treat feet, I mean the predominant one being the podiatrist, this is the sort of new name, I say it's the new name, it's been around for about 20 odd years now, but people still sometimes refer to chiroprady, choropathy and podiatry are pretty much the same sort of thing. Podiatrists have a degree now, so we've all gone through a full-time university qualification to come out with a degree and we get a degree in podiatry, so we're called podiatrists. And you would hopefully see a podiatrist or be referred to a podiatrist if you had a foot problem. You can be referred to a podiatrist via your GP and you'd see those on the NHS or you could see a podiatrist privately and you could see those at your own cost, at your own leisure. Podiatrists are foot specialists and they'll deal with any problems, foot and ankle, diabetes, vascular, children, musculoskeletal problems, so they are all-round foot specialists. Other people that you might see, your practice nurse might have further sort of interest in the foot in diabetes or foot in vascular disease, she might do foot dressings in the community referred by the GP, so you might see the practice nurse and you might see the practice nurse as part of your diabetes annual review and they might do your annual sort of management of your diabetes alongside your GP. Other people, district nursing, community nursing, who might come in and treat dressings, provide dressings for you or treat wounds for you. So you might come into contact with those people. Other people you might see, there are healthcare foot health practitioners who work in the community with people who would be, in my opinion, low risk. So people who've been assessed as having no complications as a result of diabetes or vascular disease affecting their feet, and maybe just need some low level sort of foot care, maybe some nail care if they have arthritis or other conditions that maybe affect their mobility, they can't reach their feet, or maybe their hands aren't strong enough to be able to cut their nails or treat their feet. But with anybody that you're seeing privately, you need to make sure that they have the relevant level of competence and qualification to deal with your feet because obviously with diabetes the risk of developing problems can be escalated with neuropathy, with damage to the nerves and with circulation issues and with this risk of infection. So if you are going to see anybody please seek advice and you can find out if people have the sort of relevant qualifications by looking at things like the healthcare professions council register, it's called the HPC, HCPC register, sorry, and you can just google HCPC and you can put in a person's name and you'll see what qualifications they have. And that's a professional kind of register of people who would probably be safer to see.