Josh Newbury

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I warmly welcome the Minister to her new role. Earlier this year, I was contacted by Michelle, the mum of a bright little boy called Toby who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was just 20 months old. Michelle told me that when she was a child, she happened to overhear a conversation between her mum and the mum of her best friend who had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. That meant that Michelle recognised Toby’s symptoms, but, if she had not heard that conversation, she might never have made the connection. Michelle took Toby to Cannock Chase hospital and raised her concerns about some of his symptoms, such as thirst and heavy nappies, with the doctor. He said that Toby just had an ear infection, but Michelle trusted her gut and insisted on a test. She was then told to take him to A&E due to his extremely high blood glucose and ketone levels, and it was there that he was diagnosed with type 1. Not all parents will have that knowledge. Not all parents will know what to look out for, nor should they. Michelle told me that, in many ways, they had been one of the lucky families. It was because she had recognised the symptoms and pushed for a test that Toby avoided going into diabetic ketoacidosis. I want to pay tribute to Lyla and her parents, as others have, for campaigning tirelessly in their daughter’s name. As a dad myself, I cannot begin to imagine the pain that they must have been through, and I hope that through raising awareness of stories such as Lyla’s and Toby’s, we can bring about change. A single finger-prick blood glucose test is cheap and takes seconds. In fact, when I met three-year-old Toby, he showed me that he can already do it himself. Toby has thankfully had excellent care from the team at New Cross hospital, who are helping his family navigate their new way of life, but sadly, that was not the case for Lyla, or for so many families. That is exactly why we in this House need to fix this.