05.09.12
NHS ‘neglecting’ CFS patients
Patients with ME are being neglected by the NHS, according to a new report.
The charity Action for ME conducted a survey of services trusts offer the estimated 250,000 people in the UK with ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
Responses to Freedom of Information requests from 143 PCTs, 11 Scottish health boards, six Welsh health boards and three in Northern Ireland, showed that over a quarter of PCTs do not commission specialist secondary care for the condition.
Less than a quarter provided home visits for patients too disabled to travel.
Action for ME chief executive, Sir Peter Spencer, told the Press Association: “These figures are a disgraceful indictment of institutionalised discrimination and neglect.
“Health services in all of the four home nations are still not even beginning to address the needs of this vulnerable patient group properly. Rhetoric and prevarication from ministers is simply not good enough. We need action now to put this right once and for all.”
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