n the 15th of January Toby held a Westminster Hall debate on the recognition of Fibromyalgia as a disability.

The debate follows a petition set up by Chesterfield Constituent Adrienne Lakin who set up a petition on Change.org which has over 119,000 signatures, the petition can be found here: https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-make-fibromyalgia-a-disability

In January last year Toby held a Parliamentary Reception on Fibromyalgia, the reception raised awareness of fibromyalgia with MP’s and the support that those with the condition need.

Following this Toby presented a petition to the house in April 2018, the Hansard for this petition can be found here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-04-25b.985.2

This January’s Westminster Hall debate was extremely constructive. Numerous MPs came and subsequently raised their extreme concerns at both the lack of awareness of Fibromyalgia and the difficulties faced by those suffering from the condition.

The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, acknowledged that there were many difficulties faced by those with the condition, which need to be addressed. She assured those present that actions would be taken to improve the quality of lives of sufferers – such as promoting greater awareness amongst doctors for diagnosis, and amongst employers.

After the debate Toby said “Instead of being a debate where we just identified problems – I think we also managed to identify many potential solutions”.

The debate has led to an invite to a roundtable and summit with the Minister for Disabled people, Health and Work, the Minister responsible for the main disability benefits and Ministers from the relevant departments.

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