A Glasgow Mum whose teenage daughter died while working in a Glasgow bar has been nominated for a top campaigning award.
Elaine Cunningham started a petition after her daughter, Lauren Reid, died from a heart attack, aged 19, triggered by an asthma attack in February 2020.
Lauren, from Dennistoun suffered the heart attack after she finished her shift working at Gin71.
READ MORE: "Lauren is with the Angels now": Dennistoun teenager dies from asthma attack
Her mum began campaigning to allow salbutamol inhalers to be included in first aid boxes in commercial kitchens.
Although Lauren usually carried an inhaler, she did not have it on this occasion. Elaine joined with Brian, Executive Director of the national chef’s union Unichef, to start a petition in Lauren’s name calling on the Government to grant a prescription control exemption for commercial kitchens.
When she started the campaign Elaine said: "I don’t want any other parent to feel the way I do.
"Lauren had her inhaler with her everywhere, until the one day she went without them and this happened. It's so hard not to blame yourself."
READ MORE: Lauren Reid: Mum of Glasgow teen who died after asthma attack launches inhaler campaign
Elaine used social media to highlight the campaign attracting 2 million views on tik tok.
Her campaign has been backed by Unichef and Asthma UK.
Elaine has now been nominated for the Petition Campaign of the Year Award at the Your UK Parliament Awards.
The petition achieved more than 102,000 signatures and was debated in Parliament on 29 November 2021.
After meeting with an MP Nick Fletcher a meeting with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the body responsible for granting exemptions from prescription control, to discuss what needed to be done in order to grant an exemption to commercial kitchens.
During a debate in the House of Commons Nick Fletcher MP discussed the case for Lauren’s Law and asked the Government to facilitate the gathering of the evidence the MHRA would need in order to consider a prescription control exemption.
In response, the minister for health stated that the Department for Health would explore commissioning such research.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here