Waikato DHB’s regional diabetes service provides two on-call services. The first is for patients enrolled in their service who need urgent advice out of clinic hours on things such as managing illness, ketones, and hyper/hypoglycaemia. The on-call service also takes referrals for after hours support under specific circumstances, ie, post hospital discharge and pregnancy monitoring in type 1. The second service is for general practitioners, practice nurses and pharmacists in the region who can email or telephone for advice and information about any patient in their care. The service is staffed by diabetes clinical nurse specialists with access to diabetes physicians, dietitians and podiatrists.
