Lifelong Medical Exemption Certificate for ALL with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus!

Life with type 1 diabetes means that every day we require crucial resources such as insulin in order to survive. Therefore, should we be receiving penalty charges from the NHS Business Services Authority for invalid Medical Exemption Certificates - when there is a significant lack of awareness out there regarding the validity and, in cases, even the existence of such a certificate? (Surely, on medical records proof of our condition with type 1 diabetes mellitus is always available?!)

Unless a cure one day comes around for type 1 diabetes (and every person has access to it) we have type 1 diabetes mellitus for life; therefore, my question stands: why does a Medical Exemption Certificate for type 1 diabetes last a maximum of just 5 years? It should be lifelong and it should be issued upon diagnosis.

* Currently not enough awareness is available regarding this certificate for our prescriptions and a letter, one on one talk to a professional or even phone call should be on offer to ALL newly diagnosed and families.

* For young adults transferring from childhood care to adulthood, they should have had all of the above again take place to be made aware. None of this happened personally for me and I now have a £100.00 penalty + £40.25 prescription charge to deal with.

Please sign this petition if you agree that within the UK the NHS should offer a Life-Long valid Medical Exemption Certificate to EVERY person living with type 1 diabetes mellitus, for us to always have access to the crucial resources we need - without receiving petty penalty charges for it through a lack of awareness provided. It would also reduce a lot of NHS admin! Personally I dream of a world where every person living with type 1 diabetes has access to all the resources they need, for free, as it is our given right to live and nobody should profit from that; let's make a start here in the UK!