When I was first diagnosed two years ago I happened upon a DUK
campaign caravan. They were nice friendly people and gave me lots of
leaflets. I was impressed that they were putting out that kind of
effort to reach diabetics. I was still pretty scared and demoralised
by my recent diagnosis, and was most encouraged by their fiendly
support.

H'ever, I already knew from using my meter how bad the kind of diet
they suggested was for me. In fact it was eating just that kind of
sensible healthy diet which had already caused me some diabetic
damage, such as neuropathy, glaucoma, heart attack, etc.. I tried
discussing that with them.

They assumed I was ignorant and stupid and told me a lot of
kindergarten nonsense about diet. They assumed my BG readings were
either wrong or I was misunderstanding them and ought to get my doctor
to explain BG readings to me.  I tried to get them to raise their
level of discussion by pointing out that I was a university academic
with a biological education who could actually understand science,
design experiments, calibrate measuring intruments. etc., but it made
no difference. They had clearly all being trained in how to be nice to
stupid ignorant people and couldn't depart from their scripts.

So I looked up their web pages, and tried emailing them to discuss
their dietary advice. Despite my deliberately plentiful clues that I
wasn't a stupid ignorant person with disatrously uncontrolled blood
sugars they insisted on talking down to me as though I was.

I suspect this is a typical misapplication of evidence-based
management. Statistics show that most UK diabetics are stupid and
ignorant, have badly controlled blood sugars, and eat too much fast
food. So the most cost-effective way for DUK to spend their money is
to aim it at stupid ignorant badly controlled diabetics. In order not
to discourage them they give them achievable BG targets and achievable
improvements in diet. And if you happen already to be doing better
than their targets they give you advice to help you worsen back to
their targets :-(

It's the kind of thing that happens when you try to run an
organisation efficiently by using managers trained to set targets,
monitor outcomes, etc.. Everything looks good statistically in terms
of target tick boxes. Intelligence and understanding are ignored
because they take too long to measure. Thinking is discouraged because
it wastes time in committee meetings.  Just follow the script and tick
the boxes.

Exactly. Sadly I now avoid DUK because trying to interact with them
was in the end infuriating and insulting. I really tried to make
friends with them, and I'm disappointed to find that, like the NHS, in
pursuit of financial business-like efficiency they've fallen into the
hands of blinkered tick box managers.