{"id":13564,"date":"2017-06-28T04:28:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T04:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=13564"},"modified":"2017-06-28T04:28:25","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T04:28:25","slug":"carers-of-children-with-me-accused-of-fabrication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/carers-of-children-with-me-accused-of-fabrication\/","title":{"rendered":"Carers of children with ME ‘accused of fabrication’"},"content":{"rendered":"

BBC News England<\/strong>, 27 June 2017: Carers of children with ME ‘accused of fabrication’<\/a><\/p>\n

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME, affects about 25,000 children in the UK
\nA “significant number” of those caring for children with ME have been accused of fabricating their child’s illness, a survey has found.<\/p>\n

The charity Action for ME said a safeguarding referral to a child protection team had been made against one in five respondents.<\/p>\n

Its chief executive said children and their carers faced the “double whammy” of an ME diagnosis and not being believed about their condition.<\/p>\n

NHS England has been asked to comment.<\/p>\n

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is a debilitating disease that has a major impact on the lives of those affected. It causes persistent fatigue that does not go away with rest or sleep.<\/p>\n

It affects about 25,000 children in the UK.<\/p>\n

Out of 270 respondents to the survey, one in five said they had had a safeguarding referral to a child protection team made against them.<\/p>\n

Half of the referrals involved allegations that parents had fabricated or induced their child’s illness, although 70% of all the cases referred to social services were dropped within a year.<\/p>\n

‘Lives stolen’<\/strong>
\nSonya Chowdhury, CEO of Action for ME, which is based in Keynsham, near Bristol, said:<\/p>\n

“Ninety-six per cent of the parents felt that their children’s care had been affected by a lack of understanding of ME and nearly 100% of parents were concerned their child had not been believed.<\/p>\n

“If people are not believing a child about an illness even when there is a diagnosis, those children are facing a double whammy.<\/p>\n

“Not only have they had their lives stolen as a result of illness, they’ve had their lives affected and traumatised as a result of the system.”<\/p>\n

She said the charity would be carrying out further investigations into the claims.<\/p>\n

England’s chief social worker Isabelle Trowler said:<\/p>\n

“It’s important that all the professionals who work with young people have a firm understanding of conditions like ME and the impact these can have on their daily lives, so they can access the same opportunities as their peers.<\/p>\n

“I have met and continue to meet with groups and organisations including Forward-ME, and will work collaboratively with them and a national network of social workers to further professional understanding of children with ME.”<\/p>\n

An investigation of the survey and treatments for ME\u00a0was on Radio 4’s\u00a0File on 4\u00a0on Tuesday at 20:00 BST. Listen again<\/a><\/p>\n

Read Dr Charles Shepherd’s comments on the programme in the comments section\u00a0at our post: ‘Believe ME’ on BBC Radio 4 Tues 27 June 2017 at 8pm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC News England, 27 June 2017: Carers of children with ME ‘accused of fabrication’ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME, affects about 25,000 children in the UK A “significant number” of those caring for children with ME have been accused of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[257,1799,1796,3856,258,2211],"class_list":["post-13564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-children","tag-fabricated-or-induced-illness","tag-fii","tag-isabelle-trowler","tag-paediatric-me","tag-sonya-chowdhury"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-3wM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13564"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13575,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions\/13575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}