Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia

One more event from yesterday I should have mentioned (and the real highlight as far as my children are concerned) – meeting and having a photo with Claudia Winkleman. This was in aid of the Global Campaign on Education who had a seminar in the Lords yesterday. She was excellent, talking about her experiences seeing things overseas.

Today I had an hour of training on safety from London Underground as I am to visit a station at 1.30 in the morning on Saturday (or Friday night) to see how it is being improved by Tubelines for my local constituents. Let’s hope the visit is worth the hours!

The Lynne Feathestone MP being screened for sickle cell and thalasseamiaevent of the day for me was the celebration of the ante-natal screening of all newborns for Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia. In Haringey we have quite a high incidence as it is prevalent amongst some of our communities – but it has been a Cinderella disease on the sidelines. This move on screening puts it in the mainstream.

And because I have some local connection with the George Marsh Centre and because I put down Parliamentary Questions on the diseases (and get very little info back as the government don’t bother to collate statistics for the most part on this) I was asked to sponsor this event – which means host it on the organisation’s behalf.