Jo Platt MP (Labour, Leigh & Atherton) chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on ME and also for the APPG on Long Covid asks Ashley Dalton MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care) a question regarding NHS health services which was answered on 10th March.
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2025 to Question 26770 on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Health Services, whether the results from the NHS England stocktake will be published.
Answer
NHS England’s long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, stocktake aimed to collate information about service commissioning, activity, and delivery, to provide a national overview of the services commissioned by integrated care boards as part of their core activity. The stocktake was completed for an internal NHS England committee and, therefore, there are no plans to publish the findings. However, those findings did confirm the widely recognised challenges of significant variation in care delivery across England, and a lack of comprehensive activity data.
MEA Comment
I raised the issue of the NHS stocktake of ME/CFS referral services with the relevant government minister at the DHSC (Ashley Dalton MP) last week but have not yet had a reply.
It is very disappointing and unacceptable to read in this parliamentary question reply that NHS England have no plans to publish the findings of their stocktake of NHS referral services for ME/CFS.
People with ME/CFS have a right to know what a report about their NHS care says.
The ME Association will continue to try and get this report published.
Dr Charles Shepherd,
Trustee and Hon. Medical Adviser to the ME Association,
Member of the 2018-2021 NICE guideline on ME/CFS committee,
Member of the 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on ME/CFS
