National guidelines for psychological care in diabetes: how mindful have we been?

Aims To assess the availability and types of psychological services for people with diabetes in the UK, compliance with national guidelines and skills of the diabetes team in, and attitudes towards, psychological aspects of diabetes management. Methods Postal questionnaires to team leads (doctor and nurse) of all UK diabetes centres (n = 464) followed by semi‐structured telephone interviews of expert providers of psychological services identified by team leads. Results Two hundred and sixty‐seven centres (58%) returned postal questionnaires; 66 (25%) identified a named expert provider of psychological services, of whom 53 (80%) were interviewed by telephone. Less than one‐third (n = 84) of responding centres had access to specialist psychological services and availability varied across the four UK nations (P = 0.02). Over two‐thirds (n = 182) of centres had not implemented the majority of national guidelines and only 2.6% met all guidelines. Psychological input into teams was associated with improved training in psychological issues for team members (P