Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Health
Written answers and statements, 5 November 2009
Paul Rowen (Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health
(1) whether his Department plans to make myalgic encephalomyelitis a notifiable illness in schools;
(2) what recent discussions his Department has had with officials from myalgic encephalomyelitis charities and campaign groups on proposals to make myalgic encephalomyelitis a notifiable illness in schools.
Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; Brentford & Isleworth, Labour)
We have no plans to make chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) a notifiable illness in schools.
Since 2007, the Department has received a large number of requests from many organisations, including CFS/ME stakeholders, campaigning for their disease or condition to be recognised as a notifiable disease. The Department's position remains that this classification should be used only for a relatively small number of infectious diseases where monitoring is required to identify sources of infection, and not as a means for collecting statistical information on the prevalence of specific conditions.