An incomplete home monitoring diary

Setting: A diabetes nursing follow-up clinic

A patient has been asked by the treating team to keep a home monitoring diary. Several entries are blank. The supplied plan specifies the monitoring schedule and contact instructions; you must not invent thresholds or alter medicines.

Task

Invite the patient’s account without blame.
Explore a specific barrier to recording.
Explain that actual entries are more useful than reconstructed numbers.
Agree a workable reminder and check the contact route.

Fictional monitoring plan

The existing prescribed recording schedule for this scenario is before breakfast and before the evening meal. The task does not ask the candidate to change this schedule or interpret numerical readings.
Record the actual reading and time. Leave missed readings marked as missing, with a reason if known; do not reconstruct numbers.
Use the diabetes nursing team contact on the clinic card for uncertainty about the plan or a reading that concerns the patient. New urgent symptoms use the urgent route on that card.
Do not change medicines independently.
A small paper record may replace the large diary while retaining the prescribed schedule.

Fictional scenario information supplied by the treating team; not medical guidance for real patients.