BBC Radio 4 – File on Four programme – CHILDREN WITH ME (June 2017)
This programme aims to highlight and discuss the difficulties children and their families face when trying to deal with ME/CFS.
Dr Charles Shepherd of the ME Association assisted the presenter (Matthew Hill) with background information on the history and causation of ME/CFS, and the controversies surrounding the PACE trial and commented about the programme:
“I would personally like to thank Matthew Hill and the BBC for making the programme and to all the families who took part. I thought it was an excellent programme that exposed a very worrying trend in inappropriate child safeguarding measures, based in a great many cases on professional ignorance of M.E.
” I thought he did a really good job in explaining the complexities of the situation that faces far too many parents of children with ME/CFS who are not willing to comply with medical advice regarding the use of CBT and GET that they disagree with. As a result the parents can easily end up being threatened with completely unwarranted child protection proceedings.
“I have also been at meetings over the past few months with representatives from the General Medical Council, Royal College of General Practitioners and met Mrs Isabelle Trowler (Chief Social Worker for children and families) to discuss ways of improving education and knowledge of ME/CFS amongst health and social care staff.
“However, in light of the BBC programme it is very clear that much more is needed to be done to improve professional awareness and education about M.E. and end the ignorance about this serious neurological disease.”
Here is the link to the Radio 4 website and progamme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vyly5
Here is the MP3 file containing this broadcast: