Patient Engagement Sessions: NHS services for ME/CFS and Long COVID in Greater Manchester.
NHS Services for ME/CFS and Long COVID are currently being reviewed in Greater Manchester. To be involved whether by attending any of the online sessions you need to either complete this form here https://forms.office.com/e/9qtEeSCHGu or use the contact details in the document below.
We are pleased to share the date and times for which patient engagement sessions will take place on Teams/Zoom:-
Schedule of dates
Thursday 17 April, 2pm – 3pm, and 6pm – 7pm
Tuesday 22 April, 2pm – 3pm, and 6pm – 7pm
Wednesday 30 April, 2pm – 3pm, and 6pm – 7pm
Note this is an opportunity for people who live in or receive NHS services from Greater Manchester only or for people who care for someone who does. The review is covering both adult and children’s services. If you live in a different area and want to engage with those who are ( or are not) commissioning services then reach out to those NHS boards directly.
Each day the evening session is a repeat of the afternoon session so people should not attend both. You do not need to attend all three sessions and might wish to choose a session or sessions where the topics feel most relevant to you. The topics and we hope questions will be made available in advance and people should be able to submit written submissions through online forms if they prefer or are not able to attend in person.
Once details have been finalised we will be circulating official event details with NHS logos, links to join the meetings etc. but for the moment this is a small amount of advanced notice so you can save the dates and plan your energy and commitments around the sessions a little bit. We appreciate that some of these dates are falling over the Easter Holidays and won’t be ideal for everyone. This work is having to be completed under tight time constraints so in order for the engagement to be completed within a time frame that it can be meaningfully considered before decisions need to be made this is unavoidable.
A key aim is for everyone where every you live in Greater Manchester and what ever post viral condition you have to have access to appropriate services that meet your individual needs.
Stockport ME Group has been working with Greater Manchester Integrated Care on what started as a review of ME/CFS services and has recently expanded to being a review of ME/CFS and Long COVID services for multiple years.
The aim is to have these initial consultations in tandem with work of the steering group of which Alanna Germon and Ben Wickens ( both from Stockport ME Group) are lived experience representatives, several task and finish groups and other working groups to develop proposals for new combined ME/CFS and Long COVID services in Greater Manchester.
Although on-going patient engagement is intended to be a feature of commissioned services for ME/CFS and Long Covid in Greater Manchester we still feel that this represents a once in a generation opportunity to have your say in how new services are designed and delivered to provide the best possible services for patients.
For many people in the group they will have had as much of any NHS service that they wish for and your involvement in this will be less about yourself but more about how others with post viral illnesses are treated by the NHS in Greater Manchester moving forward.
Unlike the previous involvement we co-faciliated around ME/CFS this engagement is being facilitated by the NHS although we are assisting in both promoting the events to patients and also in other ways.
