Tormenting your MP

The House of Commons, yesterday

Now the election in the UK has been won (sort of) a whole new load of MPs are moving into their new offices in the House of Commons, all of them blissfully unaware of the pancreatically-challenged hordes out there.

Of course, viewers in Scotland will have the same old MSPs until 2011 (health being a devolved matter); but for the meantime we’re going to ignore them (along with the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies). Hope you don’t mind.

Anyway, my thinking is this – all these new MPs need to be educated about diabetes, the problems that it brings and the issues in diabetes healthcare which concern people with broken pancreases. They’ve got other things to worry about – such as insanely large budget deficits – and they’re not going to do any research into moderately obscure medical conditions themselves. Therefore, we need to write to them to tutor them in the dark arts of the pancreas.

Our friends at Diabetes UK, JDRF and so on are very good at doing this sort of thing; but I do think nothing beats a personal letter to your MP to reinforce the point. It’s all good stuff.

However, the downside is that letter writing is somewhat tedious at the best of times; therefore here at your soaraway Shoot Up we’re toying with putting together some template letters for you to use. Unedited template letters are pointless, but they do form a useful framework to which you can add your own personal experiences of diabetes. And the more personal they are the better.

But we need your help. In general, given Shoot Up has a bias towards Type One so will the letters (sorry Terry – our token type two!) But what things about diabetes care concern you? What themes should letters cover?

So, for example, does a lack of DSNs make getting help and advice impossible? Are clinics too infrequent and difficult to get to? Are newer technologies – such as pumps or CGM – not available in your area? Do you want your health care provider to concentrate on good day-to-day care, or do you want them to strike out for a cure?

So many questions – let us know what you think now!