Anne Milton joins us for World Diabetes Day

On the 12^th of November, Minister for health and Guildford MP Anne Milton attended a World Diabetes Day awareness event at The Cedar Centre.

Other guests included patients who have successfully managed their condition for 50 and 60 years, children with diabetes, health care professionals from the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Primary Care and Surrey Community Health, Researchers, representatives from the pharmaceutical industry and Nick Moberly, Chief Executive of the RSCH,

Anne Milton presented an Alan Nabarro Medal to Colin Lewis, for living with diabetes for 50 years, and a Robert Lawrence medal to Anthony Titcombe, for living with diabetes for 60 years. She also made a short speech about the importance of raising awareness of health issues such as diabetes and promised that ‘we will continue to do all we can to make the health care services work for you’.

The event was organised by Professor David Russell Jones, diabetes speciality clinical director at the Cedar Centre, to raise awareness of those living with diabetes and the ongoing provision of resources for diabetes.

He said “It is always good to do something to raise awareness, because of the number of people who are likely to have diabetes at the moment, which is about 300 million in the world. Within the UK, the annual spend on diabetes is about £9 billion.

“It is the leading cause of blindness in the UK, on of the most common causes of amputations and one of the most common causes of renal failure.

“The message that we want to spread is that most of these complications are preventable with good care and management”