I speak as another member of the Petitions Committee who heard the evidence that was given to us. Can I also thank Beth Baldwin for her commitment and tenacity on this subject? She and her family have courageously strived to ensure that the tragedy experienced by their family should lead to improvements in awareness and identification of type 1 diabetes in children. Without her, we would not be having this debate today. For that, we owe thanks to Beth Baldwin and her family. It is also notable how the Baldwin family have conducted their campaign in an extremely positive way. The petition is only one aspect of their efforts, and along with it they have continued to raise public awareness of the symptoms of type 1 diabetes and raise very significant funds for Diabetes UK Cymru. They should be immensely proud and, again, I would like to personally thank them, and I’m sure that the whole of this Chamber would.

Type 1 diabetes has touched my life twice: once with fatal consequences and once with a happy ending. Whilst working as a relatively young college lecturer, I had a student who continually drank water and frequently visited the toilet. He was generally fit and apparently healthy. He went away on holiday for two weeks one Easter, was taken ill, had complications as his diabetes had not been identified—it was too late, and then he died. The second case concerned someone who I worked with who also drank water continually. A colleague suggested he visited a doctor to be tested for diabetes. After several days of nagging—not just from the one colleague, but by the whole office, the original colleague kept on, but so did the rest of us, including me and others there—he made an appointment with the doctor. When he visited the doctor, he was treated as if he was wasting the doctor’s time—he was young, fit and slim, active, weight lifting, doing all the things that young fit men do. The doctor eventually agreed to test him for diabetes. Twenty-four hours later, he was in hospital. He is now back to normal and with his diabetes under control. He owes his life to his colleagues and his own tenacity.

Diabetes is a serious lifelong condition where your blood glucose level is too high, although I’ve been told by people—I’m sure other people have—‘I’ve got a bit of diabetes’, as if it was a cold or a minor virus they were suffering from. We know the common warning signs—as I say, we know the four Ts—but does everybody out there know them? And I think that's a challenge to all of us: if you’re going to do something useful in society, it’s to get across as often as you possibly can—thirsty, tired, toilet, thinning—'Any two out of four, go and get it checked.' Most likely, it isn't diabetes, but the result of you not testing it can be fatal.

I welcome the Government’s response when they say the importance of the early detection of type 1 diabetes is acknowledged in their diabetes delivery plan for Wales. There are clear guidelines in place to support healthcare professionals in the investigation of suspected diabetes, and the complications of diabetes are reported as part of the national paediatric diabetes audit. I further welcome the acceptance that the Welsh Government should seek assurance from health boards that appropriate blood glucose testing equipment is available in all relevant primary care settings and that all GPs have access to equipment that will help to identify potential cases of type 1 diabetes upon presentation.

The key is to work with health boards and other key partners to ensure that the four Ts campaign is promoted. But it’s not just in hospitals, it’s not just amongst health professionals—other partners are needed in schools and colleges. School and college staff need to know what to look for. Can I just say how much I wish I had known what to look for that time, as I’m sure my colleagues do? I do not want a case like the first one I described for anyone else to be talking about. Thank you.