Member News
By Kylie Clark - 2nd July 2009
MPs have been urged to step up pressure on the government to deliver results on care for people with long term conditions.
The call came as the chief executive of the MND Association said NHS services have not been "set up" to deal with motor neurone disease.
Speaking at the MND all-party parliamentary group on Wednesday, Dr Kristine Knox also called on the NHS and social services to approach the needs of people with the disease on a "national basis".
She explained: "We at the MND Association have been working very hard to draw up a map of the country... We are very clear where it is good and where it is not good.
"NHS services have not been set up to deal with this kind of disease.
"The biggest message is that organisations like ours, we are doing what we can, and I think we are doing pretty well, but we cannot replace the NHS.
"We can't intervene across the country. Therefore there really is a need for the NHS and social services to think about the needs of people with MND on a national basis."
Knox called on members of the APPG to consider launching an inquiry into MND services.
"We would really like you to consider how you would help us achieve a national MND strategy," she told the event.
Mark Todd, Labour MP and chairman of the group, said that the group would call on the National Audit Office to investigate models of care and the costs and benefits of them in relation to MND.
He criticised the "inertia" on the national service frameworks on long term conditions.
He told the meeting that a "tiny little mouse has crept out" of the document "in terms of outcomes".
Todd also recommended that MPs should ask about the status of the document on long term conditions through targeted parliamentary questions and adjournment debates.
Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik added that it should be made "unacceptable" to have significant differences in services across the country.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd