Seamus Logan

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for opening this important debate, and I pay tribute to the members of the public present, who no doubt represent thousands of people online tonight. The Lyla’s law campaign is a powerful reminder of the devastating consequences of missed or delayed diagnosis for type 1 diabetes in children and young people. It calls for improved education and guaranteed routine testing for children showing early symptoms before they reach diabetic ketoacidosis, which is a life-threatening condition that requires emergency hospital care. Many families and parents learn about their children’s condition only once they have reached this potentially fatal stage. Not only is that traumatic and dangerous, putting a child’s life at risk, but it creates avoidable costs and puts strain on emergency healthcare services. Families should not have to wait for those serious complications to occur for a diagnosis to be made. Despite this, the UK Government claim that there is still “insufficient evidence” to support routine mandatory testing for type 1 diabetes in babies, toddlers and young children. That is why the petition is so important. It calls for existing NHS guidance, which recommends the immediate testing of children and young people showing symptoms of type 1 diabetes—the fours Ts, which have been mentioned—to be formally legislated for. Current guidance alone is clearly not enough, and a standardised approach for all GPs and doctors is urgently needed. A member of the Insulin Pump Awareness Group in Scotland recently wrote to me mentioning that they often wonder whether their own diagnosis 29 years ago would have been picked up had they not been made aware of the four Ts symptoms through family.