As we have reported in previous newsletters, despite the best efforts of ourselves and The Northern CFS/ME Clinical Network we have not been successful in persuading the Primary Care Trust Commissioners to fund a local Tees CFS/ME service.

They tell us there is insufficient need, people are not presenting with CFS/ME to their GP, and those that are, are being seen in South Tees Hospital by Dr McCarron, who single handedly manages patients.
We have met Dr McCarron (a Consultant in Infectious Diseases) and he does indeed see patients, but only a small number as he can not accommodate any more in his busy clinic. Dr McCarron supports our case for a dedicated CFS/ME team locally.

The Commissioners tell us that they do provide an alternative service by agreeing to send patients to the Leeds Fatigue Service. They also tell us that GP’s are aware of this but that no patients have requested a referral to Leeds. We know Leeds is too far to travel for the majority of people with ME. We have asked them to consider making provision for people to go to one of the Teams in our region, County Durham, Sunderland or Newcastle. This seems to fall on deaf ears. Members in the Tees area should be aware that your GP can refer you directly to Dr Gavin Spickett in his Immunology Clinic at the RVI Newcastle. There is a contract agreement and of course Dr Spickett is our CFS/ME Clinical Champion for the Northern Region.

We will be preparing a business case again this Autumn for 2008/9 – we have the support of local MP’s, but we must ask you to help to provide the evidence of need to prove the demand for local services.

Through contacting the office we can send you out a brief questionnaire that includes details to help us prepare our case – please take a few minutes to complete this. There is a Freepost envelope provided and we urge you to send this information to us.