The two-hour webinar will take place on Wednesday, 02 July, at 1 p.m. NHS clinicians can obtain an Eventbrite ticket here.
The ME Association (MEA) is pleased to announce it will host a webinar for NHS clinicians in collaboration with ELAROS 24/7 LTD.
The webinar will include guest speakers from England and Wales who will share their journey of developing a specialist service.
It is aimed at clinicians, academics, and service providers across the UK who will hear from colleagues already involved in developing and delivering integrated services.
Background
Over the last eight months, the MEA's Health and Social Care team (HASC) has engaged with Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England and Health Boards (HBs) in Wales, as well as with many clinicians already established in ME/CFS specialist services and Long Covid clinics.
- The Welsh Government announced that the funding stream that led to the creation of Long COVID clinics had been extended to develop an access model which included other medical and long-term conditions with similar symptoms and needs to those with Long Covid. Expectations are that the services provide access to any condition that may benefit from the Adferiad model.
- In England, funding and responsibility for Long COVID clinics had been devolved from NHS England to the 42 individual ICBs. While many clinics have since closed despite best efforts, at least 12 ICBs have developed their own plans.
- While it is currently unclear how the Scottish Government intends to allocate funding to improve ME/CFS services, we understand that plans are in place for investment in this area.
The trend of established service development leads, a review of existing service provision, followed by a decision to consider combining existing services or creating new services, seems likely to continue across the UK.
The HASC team was initially appointed with a brief to promote effective implementation of the NICE Guideline on ME/CFS and constructively engage with the ICB of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and West Berkshire, clinicians, and local patients. The ICB appointed Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley to conduct a service provision evaluation, which can be read here.
The Department of Health and Social Care’s Final Delivery Plan on ME/CFS will include measures to improve healthcare. Following publication soon, work will continue with stakeholders, including the MEA HASC team, clinicians, and researchers, to establish national guidance on what specialist integrated services should look like and whether a national service framework can be established. This would then help ICBs develop evidence-based services that can meet the needs of more people.
The Webinar
This will be the first in a series of webinars discussing the future of healthcare for people with ME/CFS and Long Covid. We will invite people with lived experience of these conditions and their carers and other representatives to subsequent sessions.
Initially, we wanted to provide a forum where clinicians, academics, and service providers from across the UK could come together to share their experiences and discuss the challenges and potential benefits of creating integrated ME/CFS and Long Covid services. It will be the first opportunity many clinicians have had to hear from colleagues on this topic, and we hope they will find it beneficial.
The ME Association and its HASC team believe that integrated specialist services should be commissioned to meet all the NICE Guidelines’ clinical recommendations, with an evidence-based national service framework in place, so that we have consistent and high-quality healthcare provision across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. We also believe service performance and patient outcomes should be monitored locally and nationally and evaluated using validated tools and approved digital systems.
The webinar is co-organised with ELAROS, a digital health company founded and incubated by 4 NHS organisations. ELAROS has supported over 60 NHS organisations to facilitate NHS Long Covid digitally and ME/CFS service provision on a not-for-profit basis. It is currently helping many clinicians transition to integrated services and supporting people unable to access the NHS.
In 2020, ELAROS developed their ‘C19-YRS’ digital platform in collaboration with the University of Leeds and the Leeds Long Covid Rehab Team. The platform has been nationally recommended by NHS England, commissioned by NHS Scotland, cited by NICE, and used to deliver numerous pivotal research studies and publications, such as LOCOMOTION and national service evaluations for NHS England and NHS Scotland, respectively.
The ME Association and its Health and Social Care team will continue to work with healthcare providers and clinicians, local charities and patient groups in its ambition to ensure that everyone with symptoms or a diagnosis of ME/CFS or Long Covid and those who care for them, receive the very best healthcare, especially at times when it matters most.