Living With Diabetes Community Conference

Healthy living and healthy lifestyles as well as normal life, employment, mental health and family were all discussed as part of this.

Keynote speakers include Adeola Agbebiyi, deputy director of public health (interim) at London Borough of Newham, and Dr Tammy Hibbert, a diabetes GP in Newham, who discussed making simple changes to diets to help regulate blood sugars.

Tony Kelly, who has delivered around 120 community diabetes awareness events yearly in England and abroad for the past 11 years, firstly for Diabetes UK; and now for the NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System, also spoke about community needs.

Public Health students who had taken part in a volunteering project in a community pharmacy, Reids, also presented their research findings to the conference audience.

Student Ankita Patel said,

It was very interesting to learn more about the challenges the community are facing in their daily lives, as well as finding out more about patient requirements. I got to understand the pressures of a community pharmacy as well as helping the public be aware of the wide range of services the pharmacy provides.”

Student Rubia Ahsan added,

Volunteering has given me opportunities to enhance my knowledge and prepare for my own graduate career and future endeavours.”

As part of this, the importance of community champions, local communities, trusted messengers, peer support and understanding was discussed.

With deprivations high in the London Borough of Newham, leading to multiple health inequalities, these factors were also discussed, such as the inability to regularly buy health, fresh food due to low incomes.

Dr Patricia Smith facilitated a talk on “The potential benefits of exercise 'snacking' for Type 2 Diabetics”. Exercise ‘snacking’ are short, isolated bouts of vigour exercise or physical activity lasting one minute or less. Research shows that this improves cardiovascular function and insulin sensitivity in people with Type 2 diabetes.

There were also various workshops, including qigong and breathing techniques with Dr Tau Napata, Khamitic Therapeutics, Homeopath and Qi Gong Master.