A SPECIAL team of health care professionals could be set up to bring relief to local people with chronic health problems.

That was the outcome of a study day which brought together 80 health professionals from across the North West at Lancaster House Hotel.

Delegates to the event, organised by Morecambe Bay NHS Trust and Lancaster University's Public Health and Health Professional Development Unit, as well as sufferers themselves, listened to ten talks on the social and economic effects of chronic illness behaviour arising from conditions like asthma, back pain, rheumatological and digestive disorders and ME (sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).

The organisers aim to set up a team comprising health experts from different disciplines which would rehabilitate people with long term conditions.

In a recent survey of GPs across the Bay over two thirds of respondents said they would use such a service.

Bren Abercrombie, a former teacher and publisher from Lancaster who has lived with ME for nearly a decade, gave a first-hand account of how devastating the repercussions of the disease can be. She said ME, in common with other chronic diseases, often has an isolating effect on the sufferer which is compounded by complications like resulting unemployment, relationship difficulties, loss of confidence and financial worries.

Professor Leslie Findley, Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Director of the National ME Centre in Essex, stressed that these problems are not helped by the scepticism of onlookers towards chronic illness sufferers, simply because their conditions are not immediately visible. Consultant Dr Andrew Severn from the Royal Lancaster Infirmary said, "We need a multi-disciplinary approach. If the outcome of this unique study day is a rethink of our priorities and appropriate allocation of resources to illness behaviour then it will have been a day well spent."