Apparently the government is considering stopping providing gluten free food on prescription. No doubt this would be spun as ‘reform’ again.
The prohibitive cost of gluten free food would leave the vast majority of people suffering Coeliac Disease eating non-nutritious diets and threatening their own health and, so, future costs to the NHS (cancer, osteoperosis etc.)
A member of the Coeliac Disease Support Group has put up a petition on the largely-ignored Number 10 website and I ask that you sign and distribute this as widely as possible:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/coeliacs-disease/
More on coeliac disease can be found here: www.coeliac.org.uk
May 24th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I’ve just signed the petition, for your information.
Although I’m not coeliac myself I know a few people who are. Last November when organising our St Andrew’s Day Lunch (an annual event for our National Trust for Scotland local members’ centre) I simply made the whole meal gluten-free; it saved yet one more permutation in the meal choices so made my life a little easier and no-one noticed the difference (except of course the couple of coeliac members who were able to take the same meal as most of the rest of us).
May 24th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Thank you Bill.
Now come on everyone else! Remember, there’s no self interest here, I’m only concerned about the long-term impact on the NHS when it has to pay to keep a brittle-boned cancer-ridden old me alive.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Thanks for posting this on your site, i’m severe coeliac (was going blind till the gluten intolerence was found) and even tho i belong to coelias uk, i didn’t know about it. so thanks once again; and every body out there; please sign - a gf loaf cost £2-3 each!