Hansard

I thank my colleagues across the chamber for supporting the motion and enabling the debate to happen. I welcome to the public gallery representatives of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and members of the type 1 diabetes family community in Scotland.

The debate is intended to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes, a condition that affects 29,000 people living in Scotland. Scotland has the third-highest incidence of type 1 diabetes in the world. I am by no means an expert on the disease; my relationship with the JDRF began when I was invited to the wonderful Strathclyde country park in my constituency to open the JDRF one walk fundraising event this year. I met many families at that event, which raised over £70,000 for type 1 diabetes research. I commend the families and those who support people with type 1 diabetes, which is an extremely profound diagnosis for someone in a family to have. For young children, it can mean disruption to sleeping patterns and their education, with constant monitoring required to ensure the glucose balance in the body.

I was very pleased to meet some families at a JDRF event held by my colleague Anas Sarwar in the Parliament. Again, I commend the family representatives at that event, who included Ruth Elliot, whose son Ben was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 18 months old. Ruth raised over £23,500 for the JDRF by climbing Kilimanjaro and taking part in other fundraising events. I commend, too, David Ballantyne, whose granddaughter has a type 1 diabetes diagnosis and who made national headlines last year when he hauled a 19-stone anvil up the Arran peak, Goatfell, over a 26-day period. It was a Herculean effort that raised £15,400. Again, I commend the community for getting behind and supporting those who suffer from the disease.

I also want to mention Anna Ferrar, who I am sure was having a day off school when she visited the Parliament, but it might even have been a day off nursery. She came along and was able to demonstrate how she manages her diabetes with continuous glucose monitoring technology, which she can read using her mobile phone. Her family has to fund that method of controlling her disease on an on-going basis.

To set the tone for the debate, I will quote Peter Jones, chair of the JDRF Scotland development group, who said:

“I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 37 and the impact that had and will continue to have on my life is quite profound. It is not linked to lifestyle and there is no known cure. Managing the condition on a day to day basis is like walking a tightrope. We have the expertise to accelerate the path towards the discovery of new treatments — and one day the cure — if we can encourage Scotland to lead the global fight against type 1 diabetes.”

We should be doing that, and that quote sets the tone for what I want to share with my colleagues and the wider community in Scotland about the work that the JDRF does. The JDRF has three research streams, one of which is to find a cure for type 1 diabetes sufferers through a system that would replace the molecules lost in the pancreas because of the attack on it by the immune system, which causes type 1 diabetes. The JDRF also has a treatment research stream that is looking specifically at the development of an artificial pancreas to replace the body’s pancreatic function and provide insulin and monitor glucose levels in the body automatically. The JDRF is also looking at a smart insulin that could be injected at any time by a type 1 diabetic but that would become active in the body only when glucose levels required it.

That is very innovative research work, but the JDRF is also looking at a prevention research stream that involves furthering the understanding of genetics and the immune system to try to prevent the immune system fault that leads to the development of type 1 diabetes in the body.

Scotland is home to some of the world’s best type 1 diabetes research, and Scotland-based researchers in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow receive funding in the region of £3.9 million from the JDRF every year. The Scottish Government’s chief scientist office co-funds the Scottish diabetes research network type 1 bioresource, which contains samples of blood, urine and DNA from more than 6,100 type 1 diabetes patients in Scotland. That unique and fantastic resource, coupled with Scotland’s world-leading and award-winning SCI-Diabetes system, from the Scottish care information—diabetes collaboration, provides a comprehensive snapshot of diabetes in Scotland, and it is the envy of others across the globe. SCI-Diabetes data can be viewed at general practices and hospitals, and patients can view their own data to support self-management of their condition.

The Dundee-based Scottish care information—diabetes collaboration delivers SCI-Diabetes, which was commissioned and is owned by the Scottish Government and provides a fully integrated, shared electronic patient record to support the treatment of NHS Scotland patients with diabetes. The JDRF says that that patient record is

“the jewel in the crown of Scotland’s arsenal to fight diabetes and has been successfully exported to the Middle East.”

It provides functionality for both primary care and secondary care clinicians, and includes special modules for paediatrics, podiatry, diabetes specialist nursing and dietetics.

When I met patients I learned that they sometimes get frustrated that type 1 diabetes is linked with type 2 diabetes. At the time of the walk that I attended, patients were particularly concerned about the Food Standards Scotland campaign that had been run, which did not initially make the distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. I can tell the families I met that day and the families who are in the public gallery today that, to the best of my ability, I addressed that with Food Standards Scotland. I thank the chair, Ross Finnie, and the chief executive, Geoff Ogle, who met me at a productive, open and helpful meeting. I am sure that the concerns of the type 1 community are very well understood at this time.

I again thank my colleagues for the opportunity to raise the concerns and challenges that are faced by the type 1 diabetic community. I look forward to the rest of the debate.