ME North East Draft Strategic Plan.

Following a full and comprehensive consultation process we are now in the final stages of producing our Strategic Plan. As we have said before this document will set the template for our future business planning. It will help us to map our projects in line with your priorities, to monitor and evaluate how we are getting on, and allow us to review and where necessary change areas that are not efficient. This is not designed as a rigid inflexible plan. Possible changes, via The Department of Health Directives, the medical profession, research findings, and local services will all play a role in the review process.

All local support groups had a copy of the plan and were invited to comment on it. Joy met with as many groups/leaders as possible. All comments, ideas, concerns and criticisms received are being taken into consideration.

Our member questionnaire sent out with the Summer and Autumn 2002 editions of Focus brought in an excellent 103 responses. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the form and especially for the wealth of additional detail provided that is proving extremely valuable in forming our Final Draft.

The main outcomes from this questionnaire are as follows:

Asked if members were happy/satisfied with the information we provide
84% said yes.
16% had no strong opinion.

Asked if members were happy/satisfied with how we plan to work in the future
74% said yes.
22% had no strong opinion.

Many of your additional comments on services you would wish to see cover areas such as;

Meeting others,
Relieve isolation
Young people services
Management Tips (from those recovered)
Information on friendly doctors
Help with benefits
Training in ME for doctors and other service providers

And last but not least, “A clinic, a clinic, a clinic”


Of the 103 responses received

87 were people with ME
11 were carers/relatives
5 were “other” (friend, colleague etc).


The two main questions asked in our survey were as follows;

Asked what do you think are the priority issues the following “Doughnut” shows out of 10 issues listed the number of boxes marked most frequently were: