New services to support people with chronic fatigue syndrome will be set up across the country, the health minister, Stephen Ladyman, announced today.

Twelve centres will be set up to support the development of local services for people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as ME. Each will be run by a specialist "clinical champion".

The centres will provide access to specialist assessment, diagnosis and advice on treating the condition. They will also develop education and training for health professionals to improve their knowledge and skills and support clinical research into the causes and treatment of CFS.

There will also be 28 local support teams, spread throughout the country, to provide support to people with CFS. The teams will provide specialist rehabilitation programmes for patients to help increase energy and activity levels and develop local domiciliary services covering health, education and social care needs for more severely affected patients who may be housebound or bedridden.

The teams will offer backup to GPs and other health professionals and work with self-help groups to develop "expert patient" and self-management initiatives.

But today's announcement comes two full years after a January 2002 report by an independent working group, submitted to the chief medical officer, recommended that services be set up "with some urgency" to address the lack of treatment and care provision.

"Pump-priming" funding to set up the new services, amounting to £8.5m over the next two financial years, was announced separately in May last year.

Mr Ladyman said: "CFS/ME is a debilitating and distressing condition that affects people of all ages. As the causes are still not fully understood, it is also a condition that poses a challenge to medicine and the NHS. These new centres and local teams mean that we can start developing focused, local services that will make a real difference to people's lives.

"The support, empathy and understanding of health professionals is an important factor in the care of people with this condition. The education and training provided by the centres will be invaluable in providing health professionals with the information they need to help their patients."

Chris Clark, chief executive of the charity Action for ME, said: "People with CFS/ME not only know that their illness has been recognised, but that they can now hope for the support, knowledge and understanding that its severity merits.

"We look forward to the start of the centres and to the local teams that will follow. They will bring much needed professional advice and support to those in the front line of NHS care."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the two-year delay had occurred because it was important to "get things right".

"A considered approach has been taken. The report recommended that more research was needed and to this end we engaged the Medical Research Council to produce a research strategy for CFS/ME which was published in May last year."

A steering group was then set up to "oversee funding bids to ensure that the service investment was supported with robust local plans that best met patients' needs".

The group will now oversee investment in the new services. It will be chaired by Professor Anthony Pinching, associate dean for Cornwall at the Peninsula medical school and former deputy chairman of the CFS/ME independent working group, and will include healthcare professionals, patients and carers.

Where the centres will be:
Newcastle
Leeds
Liverpool
Manchester
Sheffield
Birmingham/West Midlands
East Midlands
East Anglia
North London (Bart's hospital)
Surrey (Sutton)
Bath/Bristol
Cornwall/Devon