Last month Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall visited University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) in her role as President of JDRF, the type 1 diabetes charity. She has held the position since mid-2012 in support of the charity’s mission to discover the cure. Also there was Jeremy Irvine, the actor who played the lead role in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster War Horse and who has Type 1 diabetes and is also a supporter of JDRF.
UCLH is one of the UK’s leading institutions for insulin pump therapy – 64% of patients receive this form of therapy. This compares to a mere 3.7% average across the UK. This is one of the lowest rates of pump therapy in developed nations, and places the UK behind such countries as the Czech Republic in terms of insulin pump uptake.
RIGHT: Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall – who is President of JDRF – sees actor Jeremy Irvine help Thomas Sugden, eight, play pool in the recreation room of University College Hospital. Thomas was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was just 14 months old.
