Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with NICE on bringing forward the release of the revised NICE guidelines on ME, due to be published in October 2020.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and responsible for developing its guidelines in accordance with its published methods and processes. NICE expects to publish its final updated guideline in October 2020 with a consultation on draft guidance starting in April 2020.
Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with NICE on issuing an interim warning on the potential dangers of graded exercise therapy (GET) as a treatment for ME, prior to issuing its revised guideline in October 2020.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for developing its guidance in accordance with its published methods and processes. NICE takes into account the best available evidence in determining whether to recommend a treatment.
Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of medical training bodies on ensuring that training programs for doctors, nurses and other health professionals include the most up to date guidance on diagnosis and appropriate treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Answered by Steve Brine
Ministers at the Department regularly meet with medical training bodies including the General Medical Council, to discuss many issues. However, there have been no recent discussions with medical training bodies to discuss the guidance on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
In terms of training, the General Medical Council sets out the knowledge, skills and behaviours that new United Kingdom medical graduates must be able to demonstrate and Royal Medical Colleges, such as the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) set the standards for postgraduate medical education in general practice. General practice is where most patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/ME are likely to be managed, and the condition is identified as a key area of clinical knowledge in the RCGP Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) content guide.
The AKT is a summative assessment of the knowledge base that underpins general practice in the UK within the context of the NHS and is a key part of general practitioners’ qualifying exams.
On 20 September 2017, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence announced its decision to undertake a full update of the guideline, ‘Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (or encephalopathy): Diagnosis and management of CFS/ME in adults and children’, following a review of the latest available evidence on the diagnosis and management of CFS/ME and a public consultation. New guidance is expected in October 2020. More information on this decision can be found at the following link: