What amazes me is that people on here are dead set against the NHS providing this. We should spend more money on cancer/doctors etc.
This is not a political forum, we are here to get help. If we want to talk money and statistics, look at the cost of what happens to your life from Diabetes complications.
For a small investment by the government for everyone who has Type 1 diabetes - this would save the government millions of pounds in the future. It is an investment that will turn a huge change around in the way a Diabetic lives. It will prevent the hospital treatments from accidental low blood sugars, it will help control your blood sugars a lot more than a finger prick several times a day. It will help prevent amputations because it is a 24/7 monitoring system and it's the cheapest one out there.
The forum has over 1m users - but only 33k of them have signed the petition. That says 3 things - 1 - 97% of the users on the forum are against free care for some ridiculous reason, 2) 97% of the people don't exist and they are fake accounts, 3) 97% of the users haven't seen this post.
Personally the Libre is fantastic - unlimited blood sugar scanning, no blood, no pain, constant monitoring and so you can balance your insulin easier. You can see where your blood sugars have been and where they are going to. You can see how your body is working with the sugar at any given moment, from sleeping, walking, running, exercising. You can work out how your body is processing all the extra sugars.
All marvellous, however your argument misses a critical point. A petition to get the Libre on the NHS
doesn't change the process by which NICE makes device recommendations and won't fast track it.
The CGM petition that was posted on the Government website had the following response when it was closed by the Government:
"The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that provides guidance on the prevention and treatment of ill health and the promotion of good health and social care. NICE’s guidance is based on a thorough assessment of the available evidence and is developed through wide consultation with stakeholders.
It is for NHS commissioners to decide whether to make continuous glucose monitoring devices available to their local populations."
The key in that statement is "
NICE’s guidance is based on a thorough assessment of the available evidence and is developed through wide consultation with stakeholders". Stakeholders are not just the patients, but the supplier and everyone in the chain of supply, education, payment, etc.
If NICE is pushed into assessing something
before there is evidence that provides a very clear and demonstrable case then you can say goodbye to getting anything of use on the NHS. Let Abbott build the evidence case and submit the case when they feel ready. In the long run that will make it far more likely that we get appropriate technology on the NHS instead of punted into the long grass.
You also make a massive assumption in your statement. You state that:
"It is an investment that will turn a huge change around in the way a Diabetic lives. It will prevent the hospital treatments from accidental low blood sugars, it will help control your blood sugars a lot more than a finger prick several times a day. It will help prevent amputations because it is a 24/7 monitoring system and it's the cheapest one out there."
Well, yes,
if the diabetic in question uses it. And that's fundamentally the point. The device isn't expensive, but I've stood in front of room fulls of non-online T1Ds. I've showed off the Libre and CGM. In everyone 12 people, 2 or 3 showed an interest. The vast majority didn't. There's a plethora of people that need help with understanding how to live with their condition and why this stuff is useful, before we even get to supplying it to them.
I'd love it to be available on request, and I think it will get there, but signing petitions really doesn't help us with that or move it forward in any way. Better to liaise with Abbott to help provide evidence and to work with your local CCG to make it clear there is demand than fill in 38degrees petitions.
In response to your comments on the Forum:
"The forum has over 1m users - but only 33k of them have signed the petition. That says 3 things - 1 - 97% of the users on the forum are against free care for some
ridiculous reason, 2) 97% of the people
don't exist and they are fake accounts, 3) 97% of the users haven't seen this post."
1mn users - yes, but global users not UK users, of which the vast majority are T2D (if you base it on population split, that would be 100k T1Ds v 900k T2Ds. The numbers aren't quite that, but you get my drift). T2s don't necessarily hold the same view on testing technology that T1s do. How many sign random internet petitions that require you to give up personal details is another question. It's not really a surprise, given my above comments, that the petition hasn't garnered tons of support.