As someone who has had ME for 25 years, I was interested to read about Ember Vincent's new Expert Patient Programme (The Argus, June 28), which will doubtless provide much-needed help and support.

But it says something about the way this disease continues to be regarded that patients are still largely left to fend for themselves and to depend for advice and assistance on groups like this, run by fellow sufferers.

If 240,000 people were down with flu, the Government would be declaring an epidemic emergency and there would be action stations.

Yet when 240,000 people are laid low with an illness far worse than flu, one that wrecks lives and causes untold chronic misery, officialdom chooses either not to notice or to belittle the whole phenomenon.

Despite a recent thawing of attitudes, there still remains a vast amount of catching-up to do before ME is accorded the recognition and resources it deserves.

It's not untypical of the way patients have been treated that it took me 15 years to obtain a diagnosis and I have yet to see an ME consultant.

In fact, a disease like this requires higher levels of support than many others, especially in the initial stages when much chronic suffering could be so easily avoided.

There should be dedicated ME departments in every hospital and even dedicated ME hospitals. If that sounds like a big expense for the Government, it is worth remembering what a big expense ME already is, costing the country an estimated £3.5 billion per year.

The £8.5 million currently set aside to fund clinics works out at a mere 0.24 per cent of that.

In fact, in purely practical terms, ME in one way merits higher funding than many other diseases because unlike them, the fact that some sufferers do recover from it proves it must be curable.

Meanwhile, all power to the Expert Patient Programme. If I could find the energy to get out of the chair I'd go along to see what it's all about.

-Graham Chainey, Brighton