An early day motion has been launched by Carol Monaghan MP, and she needs your help in asking other MPs to sign the motion increasing the chance it will lead to an actual debate in parliament.
What is an early day motion?
Early day motions (EDMs) are motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons for which no day has been fixed. As there is no specific time allocated to EDMs very few are debated. However, many attract a great deal of public interest and media coverage.
EDMs are used to put on record the views of individual MPs or to draw attention to specific events or campaigns. Topics covered by EDMs vary widely. By attracting the signatures of other MPs, they can be used to demonstrate the level of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.
What is this EDM all about?
The new EDM draws attention to ME Awareness Week and it is hoped that it will attract the signatures from those MPs who have an interest in M.E. or whose constituents have raised it as an issue with them.
ME AWARENESS WEEK 2018
Session: 2017-19
Date tabled: 08.05.2018
Primary sponsor: Monaghan, Carol
Sponsors: Black, Mhairi ,Gibson, Patricia, Bardell, Hannah, Sheppard, Tommy, Brock, Deidre
“That this House recognises Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Awareness Week from 6 to 12 May 2018, which aims to highlight the impact this invisible illness has on 250,000 people across the UK; recognises the fantastic work campaigners and charities are doing to highlight ME as a physical condition which is not all in the mind; acknowledges the detrimental effect of the PACE trials and its results, and the work which is being done to reverse this; and encourages people to go blue for ME across the week, to further bring this illness out of the shadows and into the spotlight.”
The idea is that the more signatures this EDM attracts the greater the chance of an actual debate taking place in parliament on particular issues relating to M.E. Such issues are likely to be:
- Medical Education
- Need for an Early and Accurate Diagnosis
- NICE guideline review
- The PACE trial
- NHS services postcode lottery
- Problems relating to children (child care facilities)
- Severe ME (lack of domiciliary services and specialised units and difficulties accessing social care)
- DWP benefits
- Biomedical research
Write to your MP
The ME Association, #MEAction and other charities have been working together to provide a comprehensive briefing document for those MPs who are interested, and we hope that with your help we can persuade more to sign the EDM and express their interest in a further debate.
So, please write or email your MP and ask them to support this EDM explaining why, in your own words, these issues are so important. You can find your MP's details by visiting the parliament website and entering their name or your postcode.
Your letter or email need not be long or involved. This template might help, but feel free to personalise. Some people feel that a written (even typed) letter sent in the post achieves a better result, but choose whatever means is easiest for you.
Dear (Insert MP name here),
I am writing to ask that you sign EDM 1247, in support of ME Awareness Week.
As your constituent, this issue is very important to me, and I would be grateful if you could lend your support to this EDM.
(Insert personal message)
Kind regards,
(Insert constituent name)
(Make sure to include full name and address when signing off, i.e:
Joe Bloggs
123 House Avenue
London
X12 Y34)
Early Day Motion 1247 ‘ME Awareness Week 2018'
I wrote to Andrew Bridgen, MP for NWLeics.
He refused to sign because: “…NICE expect to publish new guidelines on ME/CFS in 2020. I have been assured by my ministerial colleagues that these new guidelines will take into account patients’ concerns about the PACE trials and the effectiveness of some existing recommendations. I believe, therefore, that it would not be appropriate for Ministers to interfere in its important work. Therefore, I will not be signing EDM 1247.”
It could be equally, if not more important to support this motion because 2020 is a long way off and, as both a mother of someone who has struywith ME for 16 years, and I am a nurse in general practice, my daughter’s GP’s and ones I work for still have either said “Get more exercise” or “You’re not that ill are you?”.
The more awareness NOW, the more change and understanding will happen in time for the guidelines to hopefully, but not necessarily, reflect this.
Only in the recent months we have examples of people being cured when through misdiagnosis, they likely did not have the ME 85% never recover from.
Any opportunity to enlighten the reality of living with this disability now, where sufferers are losing benefits due to ignorance, incompetence, or even complacency of these indiscriminating current assessment systems desperately needs highlighting.
One GP, who was even advising the judge at my daughter’s tribunal, which she failed, said my daughter was clearly not trying to get better by not taking the highest dose of antidepressants!!!