On 21 October 2014 a short debate on coeliac disease was held in the plenary session of the National Assembly for Wales. The debate, entitled Hard to stomach: coeliac disease and the need to improve the provision of gluten-free food in Wales was introduced by Aled Roberts AM who began by raising awareness of coeliac disease, highlighting that it is not an allergy or food intolerance, but an autoimmune disease.
Mr Roberts noted the potential for health complications if the condition was left undiagnosed and the need to increase medical diagnosis rates, currently at 24% of prevalence in the UK, which meant that there was around half a million people in the UK without a diagnosis.
Other contributions to the debate were made by Jeff Cuthbert AM, who had recently been diagnosed with coeliac disease and noted that he had found the Coeliac UK mobile app very helpful in adjusting to his new diet. Rhun ap Iorwerth AM made an appeal to Assembly Members to make Wales a country where people who have coeliac disease can feel comfortable, are supported and where there is widespread understanding of the condition. Mike Hedges AM noted that although improvements had been made in recent years to allergen labelling, more could be done to make labels easier to read.
The Deputy Minister for Health, Vaughan Gething AM attended the debate and was able to respond to the substantive issues raised. The Deputy Minister began by acknowledging that more could be done to improve awareness and understanding of coeliac disease, he hoped that the short debate would play a part in making this happen. The Deputy Minister also noted some of the difficulties in correctly diagnosing coeliac disease, due to the wide range of symptoms presented, but that it was important for primary care services to consider coeliac disease when assessing these patients. It was the expectation of the Welsh Government that NICE Guidance on recognition and assessment would be followed.
Read the full summary of this debate.
Watch the debate in full (starting at 4hr 9mins).
Download the full transcript of the short debate.