As submitted to MEA's website comments:
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The MEA’s summary report of the Forward-ME meeting of 28 March contains the following links:
1 Two links to the Dr O’Leary “briefing document” entitled “BODILY STRESS SYNDROME” INFO SHEET” (Document #1).
2 A link for a response by the Countess of Mar, dated 9 April.
An additional revised document was published several days ago on the website of ME Research UK entitled “*IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED*” (Document #2).
As a result, there is now considerable confusion as to whether Document #1 has been replaced by the revised Document #2 or whether both Documents are intended to be in the public domain.
On MEA’s Twitter feed, it is stated that “The potential changes to WHO coding for M.E. and CFS are complex. The ME Association hope to add some further clarity very soon.”
I am making available to the MEA background materials which will provide the MEA with accurate and up to date information on:
The status of decisions about PVFS, ME and CFS for ICD-11;
Changes to key ICD Revision personnel and to key committees;
The Timeline for release of the initial version of ICD-11 in June 2018;
SNOMED CT and CFS, ME;
SNOMED CT and BDD.
I hope the MEA will find this material of use when preparing any responses or other texts in relation to the revision of ICD-11, the forthcoming release of an initial version of ICD-11 and changes to SNOMED CT.
Should the MEA have any queries around the information that is being provided to them, please contact me and I shall be happy to provide clarifications.
On a general note:
The WHO plans to release an initial version of ICD-11 in June, this year. WHO plans to take the ICD-11 to the WHA assembly, in May 2018. But WHO will not be seeking endorsement of the ICD-11 until May 2019.
It is important to understand that the version released in June won’t have been completed:
. the scope of the ICD-11 MMS has been scaled back and not all chapters in this initial release may include “Description” texts for the terms included;
. there are over a 1000 proposals for addition of new terms or for edits to existing content that remain to be processed; many of these are too late for addition to the June release and will have to be reviewed for potential incorporation at a later date.
. external support is being recruited on a contract basis to assist in clearing the workload of preparing user guides and other editing tasks between June through to December, as there is insufficient WHO manpower and resources to complete the work;
. it is unclear now many of the user guidelines and companion publications, for example, the “Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines for ICD-11 Mental and Behavioural Disorders” publication that expands on the Mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorders chapter of the core ICD-11 (similar to the current ICD-10 “Blue Book”) or how many of the other specialty stand alone publications that had originally been planned will have been completed by June 2018, and if not, when they will be completed or whether they may need to be delayed until the content of the core ICD-11 edition has been endorsed by the WHA or until the ICD-11 codings are more stable.
The version of ICD-11 that will be published in 2018 is for testing, evaluation and implementation according to countries’ specific timelines and requirements.
There is no WHO mandated date by which member states will be required to migrate from ICD-10 to ICD-11.
Dr Christopher Chute has predicted it will likely take early implementers around 5 years to evaluate and prepare their countries’ health systems for transition to ICD-11. So no countries will be ready to move onto ICD-11 for several years. NHS Digital has yet to issue a tentative timeline for evaluation and potential migration to ICD-11.
ICD-10 and SNOMED CT are the mandatory classification and terminology systems for use in the NHS.
