It is vitally important that up-to-date national clinical guidelines are developed that reflect the current knowledge base for ME/CFS and have the capacity to incorporate emerging evidence as and when it is published.
‘Living’ guidelines ensure that people with ME/CFS can benefit as soon as possible from advances in diagnosis and treatment and can be efficiently updated. It is also important that these guidelines are contextualised to the Australian health and social care systems to maximise their implementation and uptake.
Emerge Australia seeks to work with all stakeholders to develop national, evidence-based Clinical Guidelines to support clinicians intheir care of people with ME/CFS. The last Australian Clinical Guidelines for ME/CFS were published in 2002. NICE (UK) published updated Clinical Guidelines on the diagnosis and management of ME/CFS in October 2021. As captured in the UK guidelines, there have been significant developments in the understanding of ME/CFS and the most appropriate ways to assess, diagnose, treat, and manage the condition.
Recognition of the similarities between Long COVID and ME/CFS are also likely to lead to a significant increase in new evidence to support appropriate care of people with these post viral diseases.
Asking the new Labor government for financial investment over the next three years to implement changes that have the potential to transform patient’s lives including updating Australia’s outdated Clinical Guidelines to reflect internationally agreed safe and best practice care for people with ME/CFS
