Wales Advisory Council for Diabetes A/W

Today we had a great turn out for the Autumn/ Winter meeting of the Wales Advisory Council on Diabetes. Although I've been a member since the Olympics back in 2012, this was a particularly special council meeting for me, because it was my first since being created Deputy Chair. Which is an incredible honour, to be able to represent people with diabetes in an official capacity.

The aim of the meeting is to consider what has been achieved since the last meeting, to discuss diabetes educational resources and material, and to raise action points and goals to achieve in numerous areas of diabetes by the next meeting. Since the last meeting the 'Pocket Med' videos have gone live, and are available for healthcare professionals to 'prescribe' to those patients would will benefit from them. There are nearly 30 videos available already, and more are about to be made soon. We got to see a brief snapshot of the video on type 1 diabetes, which whilst being informative and engaging was incredibly moving. As part of the video was told by a Mum and her young son with type 1 diabetes, interlinked with information on the condition from diabetes professionals.

We reflected on some of the great events that had been facilitated since the last council meeting back in June. Including the Giovanni's Cookery school for children with diabetes, and also the team that conquered the 10 bridges challenge in London. In terms of educational resources, the incredibly popular 'orange booklet', for newly diagnosed patients with type 2 diabetes is receiving an update and will be relaunched soon. Also launching by the end of the year will be the new 'State of the Nation' report from Diabetes UK Cymru on, as the title suggests, the current climate of diabetes in Wales and in relation to the rest of the UK.

Our next meeting will be in the new year now and I look forward to reporting back about all that's been achieved in the meantime with all things diabetes in Wales.