Record number of people living with diabetes
A Newcastle dad is calling for better education around diabetes.
It's as the number of people diagnosed has reached record breaking levels.
GP figures reveal more than 4 million people now have the condition.
Liam Bowman’s son 9 year old Luke was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes three years ago, but Liam says they missed all the symptoms.
He said:
“He was excessively drinking water; he doesn’t like fizzy drinks or anything like that so he always drank water. Waking up in the middle of the night…he was allergic to sleep as far as we were concerned he liked to stay awake. Then weight loss… well he was always a skinny lad.”
“The signs were there, we just didn’t really know what the signs were to understand what was going on.”
“Teams are out there who do spread the knowledge but I just don’t think it’s passed on. It’s a massive illness that’s out there but a lot of people don’t know what it entails.”
In Northumberland, Newcastle Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland 3,877 more people were on the register in 2014 -15 compared to 2013 – 2012.
But according to Diabetes UK, about a third of CCG’s them do not have any diabetes education available at all.
Chris Askew, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK, said:
“With 4 million people in the UK now living with diabetes, the need to tackle this serious health condition has never been so stark or so urgent. Tragically, we are continuing to see too many people with diabetes suffering serious complications, and even dying before their time, and we know that key reasons for this are that they are being denied both the care and access to education that would help them to manage their condition well.”
“With a record number of people living with diabetes, there is no time to waste in getting serious about providing better care and diabetes education. Until this happens, the rising number of people with diabetes will continue to be denied the best chance of living long and healthy lives and the NHS will continue to be crippled under avoidable but escalating costs of treating poorly managed diabetes."
Find out more at: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/