I want people to have a better experience than I did when I was diagnosed.
Volunteering with us
Vicky, who lives with type 1 diabetes, has been volunteering with Diabetes UK for three years – initially setting up a group to support colleagues at West Yorkshire Police where she’s been a serving officer for 17 years. She joined our Stigma Panel a year ago, helping to shape what we do to tackle diabetes stigma.
“I was a serving police officer when I was diagnosed and while it wasn’t the organisation's fault, there was a complete lack of understanding - particularly around type 1 diabetes and the impact on your role, shift work and reasonable adjustments.”
Vicky talked to a colleague about their collective experiences of diabetes at work and decided to set up a group to support those living with diabetes. Initially just a handful of people, it’s now grown to over 50 members, covering forces across all of Yorkshire and the Humber. The group supports people living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes as well as parents of children with type 1.
“There's that support structure in place so that we can share those experiences and things that have happened to us and help other people avoid them in the future – I’ve really seen the benefit of that recently as we’ve had a couple of newly diagnosed members join and that’s been invaluable.”
Experiences at work
As if a diagnosis isn’t enough to cope with, there were a lot of unanswered questions at work that followed.
“It’s quite a big thing because all of a sudden you're thinking right can I still be a police officer? Can I still drive a car with blue lights on? Am I still going to have a job? That had a huge impact on me and when you look around and nobody can tell you – and they don't know the stress and anxiety that causes you is completely off the wall.”
Vicky says that there’s something satisfying about being able to reassure those who are newly diagnosed that it is something they’ll come to terms with and understand how it fits into their life and ultimately do all the same things they’ve done before.
“I want people to have a better experience than I did when I was diagnosed. I was sent home from hospital at 3:30pm on a Friday with a box of Levemir and some Novorapid and told, ‘Right, have a go over the weekend and we'll see you Monday.’”
Vicky’s volunteering with us began because she wanted to make sure the support and information she was giving colleagues was accurate and up to date and not just based on her own experiences. It’s been important to remember that things have changed a lot over the time she’s lived with diabetes. Making sure people have the right information to manage their own diabetes and advocate for themselves has been critical.
Supporting others and tackling stigma
One of Diabetes UK’s key priorities is to tackle the impacts that diabetes stigma has on people, and Vicky’s volunteering has been addressing that, both in the workplace and guiding the charity’s plans for the long term. At work she’s led the way in advocating for herself and others, making sure that misconceptions about diabetes are clarified and that her colleagues have the support they need.
“I think certainly those immediate line managers around me, maybe six or eight senior officers have really understood what having diabetes means and the impact that it can have, and that’s a result of me talking about my condition and what I need to have in place to be confident at work.”
Vicky knows that your health is something that you can’t get back once it’s gone, and so she has needed to make sure colleagues know that diabetes is recognised under the Equality Act. The act states that people living with a long-term health condition are entitled to reasonable adjustments and that can include things like not working night shifts as part of their working pattern.
Vicky has been part of our Stigma Panel since it was formed in early summer 2024 and has played a big role in shaping the work of the charity, not just in 2025 but with an eye on the longer-term as well. Being involved in the panel also gave Vicky the opportunity to talk about her experiences of stigma at the Diabetes UK Professional Conference earlier this year, which she says is one of her proudest moments as a volunteer.
“To get up in front of a large audience of well-educated people and speak about something that's really personal to you… well it was really nerve-wracking. I think sometimes the more personal it is the more difficult it is. So afterwards when people came up to me saying “that was brilliant”, you do get a huge sense of achievement. I tried to make my diabetes into something positive and to think I've made an impact over something that can sometimes have quite a negative impact on me was huge.”
Making sure that both employers and colleagues understand the impact of stigma at work is a big priority for Vicky and making sure that forms part of Diabetes UK’s plans to tackle stigma was vital.
“Somebody I've worked with for a long time came in as I was taking my insulin and asked me what I was doing and seemed quite shocked. I also don’t think anyone should have to be sending screenshots of their glucose monitors showing 18 to be believed that they aren’t well. It sometimes feels like there’s less trust because diabetes isn’t as visible and that’s not fair.”
What’s next?
Vicky plans to keep running her group and hopes that this will inspire people to create more spaces for that support locally too and hopefully keep attracting some of the top names in diabetes care to speak to their group. They’ve recently had both Professor Partha Kar, National Specialty Advisor for Diabetes at NHS England and the West Yorkshire & Humber ICS Diabetes Clinical Lead, Dr Waqas Tahir, speak at different meetings and they’ve offered a huge amount of support and confidence to the group.
“I’d love to have more groups there to support people and have that ripple effect move out to more districts and other communities so more people working in the police force are able to get those shared benefits we’ve seen in our group so far.”
If Vicky’s story has inspired you to get involved, take a look at our latest volunteering opportunities.
You can also find out more about the West Yorkshire Police Diabetes UK support group Vicky runs for serving colleagues.
Discover more about how stigma affects people living with diabetes through our Diabetes Discussions: stigma podcast.
