Earlier this month, Action for ME provided a submission to the government for their Autumn Budget, which will take place on Wednesday 28 October.
ME is not only a major public health challenge, but a significant and largely unrecognised economic challenge too.
An estimated 1.35 million people in the UK are living with ME or ME-like symptoms. Most people experience substantial impairment to education, employment and daily life, with around one in four people being severely or very severely affected.
Despite the impact of ME, it remains one of the UK’s most under-served and under-researched long-term conditions. Our CEO, Sonya Chowdhury says:
“For too long, ME has been treated as a niche health issue. It isn’t. The human cost is devastating, and the economic cost runs into tens of billions of pounds. This Budget is an opportunity for Government to recognise the scale of the challenge and invest in the care, research and innovation needed to change people’s lives.”
We estimate that lost economic output could amount to approximately £34.1 billion each year, excluding healthcare, social care, welfare and informal caring costs, meaning the full economic burden is likely to be higher.
The Government has made clear its ambitions to increase employment, reduce the burden of long-term illness, shift healthcare from treatment to prevention and establish the UK as a global leader in life sciences innovation. ME sits within all four of these priorities, and targeted investment now would reduce current pressures on public services and accelerate the development of future diagnostics and treatment, improving lives.
Action for ME urges the HM Treasury to support two recommendations from its recently co-published report on Severe ME:
1. Fund implementation of a national framework for severe and very severe ME, preventing avoidable deterioration and reducing escalation into costly health and social care interventions.
2. Accelerate ME research and innovation, unlocking diagnostics, therapeutics and clinical trials that could improve health outcomes, increase productivity and position the UK as a global leader in post-infectious disease research and precision medicine.
Together, these investments would deliver immediate benefits for patients while supporting the governments objectives.
We will continue to keep the community updated.
