Guidance for commissioners of services for people with medically unexplained symptoms - 2017

Joint Commissioning Panel
for Mental Health

Guidance for commissioners of
services for people with
medically unexplained symptoms

pge 6 Functional somatic syndromes by specialty
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

https://www.jcpmh.info/wp-content/uploads/jcpmh-mus-guide.pdf

 

Membership of the committee producing this included: Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.

They seem like pretty docile Establishment bodies to me. Maybe it would be worth trying to engage them in discussion about their representation of patients concerns. I wonder what expertise they claim to have with MUS?

 

All this document says to me is that doctors are no longer taught how to diagnose anything and they aren't worth the air they use.

 

I agree. It is complete and utter b****cks.
They say 45% of patients in rheumatology outpatients have MUS. 95% of the people I used to see had reasons for their symptoms that were not too hard to track down.

It seems they are trying to persuade commissioners to set up brand new MUS services. I just wonder how many people are going to be prepared to be given an appointment for the 'you are nuts and there is nothing wrong with you clinic'. I think this might just fall flat on its face.

Surprise surprise they think we need a multidisciplinary team.

 

Maybe the 45% is to be understood as target. I'm pretty sure CBT until the patient loses hope and gives up costs less than rheumatology appointments.

 

I am always surprised by the passive aggressive psychotic comments like this, that always seem to appear with anything related to MUS / SOLK / BDS

Haha, those crazy little girls, with their periods, boyfriends, ovaries and emotions no wonder they are sick all the time.

Ah yes, the sicker you are, the crazier you are likely to be


I don't get how its 2018 and people still believe in this nonsense.

The literature they cite as ''explanation'' for MUS is even worse - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3083258/

Thank god they don't expand on that in this guidance

If you live in the UK you have to fight this idiocy as much as you can. Once this sort of stuff sticks, like in Denmark or The Netherlands, it is incredibly hard to get rid off.

 

Patients with MUS are more likely to attribute their illness to physical causes, rather than lifestyle factors.

More than who? More than people with broken legs or psoriasis? And in what sense are lifestyle factors not physical causes? Are going to bed late, drinking too much, sleeping around, eating bacon, or lying on a sofa purely mental events?

You can't make it up can you.

I think it may be a problem in Denmark because of all that bacon. And the Dutch are into weed - purely mental weed that is.

 

This is what worries me about the NICE guideline review. It could so easily go the wrong way.....

 

Do you mean cannabis?

 

Yes, sativa type.

 

Ah - quite a few pwME are into weed too - it can help.

 

I hope you're right @Adrian .... I'm not sure lack of evidence will stop 'em if they think they can get away with it.

We will need to watch for slyly crafted language that is open to interpretation ....

 

And it seems that they're already successfully underway with doing this at NICE.

 

It does feel like the whole project is too big to fail. So many of the people whose job it is to call 'bullshit' are mixed up in it, and so many outsiders don't want the career risk of being involved in 'controversy'.

 

It is unspeakably insane the way the so-called "medically unexplained symptoms" construct blames the sufferer for the failings of current medical sciences.

How is this even a Thing? How are there enough people to give it traction?

You'd think sensible people would shy away from furthering this crazy charade, but...sigh.