Our campaigns

2009: The Year of Campaigning

2009 has been a very busy year for Coeliac UK.  We have a number of campaigns to make the most of changes in health policy and make as much impact as possible for people with coeliac disease.

Improving gluten-free provision with the Eating Out Campaign

Availability of gluten-free food is improving but we still have a long way to go.  We will be working with manufacturers and retailers, developing an online training tool for chefs and caterers, as well as holding an even better Gluten-free Chef of the Year recipe competition.

To read more about these activities, look out for more information in your Crossed Grain magazine.

Get involved and be Free for Tea?

After the success of last year's Awareness Week campaign, we have continued with an Awareness Week which is part of the Eating Out campaign, in the shape of Free for Tea?

This year, Awareness Week was held from 11 - 17 May, and was called Free for Tea?  This easy and sociable premise allowed our Members to build many activities to help raise awareness and get gluten-free on the map.  We hosted a gluten-free Free for Tea? party with parliamentarians, as well as teaming up with the National Trust and National Trust for Scotland.  We worked with TV GP Dr Chris Steele MBE and celebrity chef Phil Vickery. 

To read more about Free for Tea? please click here.

Improving diagnosis with the Recognition Campaign

From recent research we know that it can take up to 13 years to be diagnosed with coeliac disease.  This year we will build on this research and raise the profile of coeliac disease with our Diagnosis Survey.

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has published guidelines which will improve the diagnosis of coeliac disease.  We will be working with NICE and lobbying parliament and healthcare professionals to make coeliac disease part of the GP contract.  We have also launched a petition and we are collecting signatures to help us find those thousands of people who have undiagnosed coeliac disease.

Improving your access to gluten-free food with the Product Campaign

The gluten-free products available have been steadily improving over the past few years, and changes to the Codex standard (the way that gluten-free food is classified) will help to improve the labels that help you select your food.

The Codex standard has changed but manufacturers have until 2010 to implement the changes.  In the mean time, we will be working with you to ensure you understand the changes with an Information Road Show.  We will also be working with the Advisory Council on Borderline Substances (ACBS) so we can keep you abreast of what this means for your prescriptions.