Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what timetable his Department has set for implementing the commitments relating to research, attitudes and education, and support for people living with ME/CFS contained within the Government’s policy paper entitled 'ME/CFS: the final delivery plan'; whether his Department plans to publish regular progress reports or annual reviews on implementation; what assessment he has made of whether NHS bodies have sufficient workforce capacity and resources to deliver the commitments contained within the plan; and whether any delivery timelines or implementation milestones have been revised since the plan’s publication.

The final delivery plan on myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), published in July 2025, contains 44 actions for the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, other Government departments, and other organisations to implement. Of these commitments, over half have been delivered already, with many more actions progressing well.

Progress on research-related actions will be reported on annually, to the ME/CFS Post-Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Group and officials intend to provide the first of those annual updates on progress against all the actions included in the final delivery plan to stakeholders in the coming months.

To help support healthcare professionals in the diagnosis and management of ME/CFS, the Department has worked with NHS England to develop an e-learning programme for healthcare professionals, with the aim of supporting staff to be able to provide better care and improve patient outcomes. All sessions of the e-learning programme are now available at the following link, with sessions one, two, and three having universal access, whilst the final session on managing severe ME/CFS is only available to healthcare professionals:

https://learninghub.nhs.uk/catalogue/mecfselearning?nodeId=7288

The Medical Schools Council will promote the e-learning programme to all United Kingdom medical schools and will encourage those medical schools to provide undergraduates with direct patient experience of ME/CFS. Additionally, the Department has taken steps towards developing the awareness campaign that was committed to in the plan.

NHS England, with support from the Department, is developing a template service specification for mild and moderate ME/CFS, which will aim to support the commissioning, provision and evaluation of services for patients. Following stakeholder feedback, this template now includes reference severe ME/CFS. This template is intended to be published alongside a Language Matters Guide. The impact on National Health Service bodies, outside of NHS England, is expected to be minimal. The decision has been made to delay the action to consider whether a specialised service should be commissioned for very severe ME/CFS until April 2027. Currently, this is the only action that has been delayed.