WAMES survey – NICE guidance in Wales
Survey – Do GPs in Wales use NICE guidance?
People with ME are looking forward to the publication of the revised NICE guidance, expected on 18th August 2021, which hopefully doesn’t recommend the discredited treatments of GET and CBT and highlights the key characteristic of Post Exertional Malaise (PEM)!
However the 2007 guidance did contain some helpful advice for GPs and yet many people told us they still struggled to get a diagnosis and management help.
The WAMES survey is designed to find out whether your GP/s showed a knowledge of the 2007 NICE Guidance during your consultations with them following publication in August 2007.
We hope your participation will help us to raise these questions for discussion 
with doctors’ leaders and NHS Wales:
- If GPs didn’t use the old NICE guidance, will they be prepared to use the new guidance? What can be done to improve usage?
- If GPs did use the old guidance then why did many people not find help and what can be done about that?
- Were some recommendations followed and others not used? If so, what were they and why?
We have kept the questionnaire simple and as short as possible to make it easy to take part. Some people may not be able to answer all the questions because their diagnosis took place before 2007, or they never found a GP to give them a diagnosis. Please give us as much information as you can for the years 2007-2021 and let others know about the survey.
You may also have particular experiences you feel we and the NHS should know about. Please add them where comment is invited or contact us separately. Your responses will be included in a report and used in discussions on how the 2021 NICE guidance can help improve healthcare for people with ME in Wales.
