If you need individual support, click on the relevant illness page to find the charity website and contact them directly.
The Overlapping Illness Alliance (OIA) is a coalition of charities working to improve recognition, care and support for people of all ages living with complex, overlapping conditions.
We are an alliance of charities representing people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Long Covid, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).
About us
Our Vision
Our vision is access to high quality healthcare for all people with overlapping illnesses
Our Purpose
Our purpose is to ensure a united voice—advocating for equitable access to high-quality healthcare, greater medical understanding, and compassionate care for overlapping conditions. Through collaboration, we drive systemic change, influence healthcare policies, and improve patient outcomes.
Strategic Objectives
- To share best practice and leverage mutual opportunities for the benefit of the overlapping illnesses represented by members
- To campaign for a healthcare pathway for people with overlapping illnesses represented by the group
Our Values
The OIA values align with well-established global health principles and must be upheld by all members:
- Human rights-based approach – working together to advance and protect the rights of people with overlapping conditions and secure equity
- Collaborative – work in partnership with the people with overlapping conditions we individually serve, partners and the broader health community to achieve our purpose
- Transparent and accountable – effectively governed with clear accountability and decision-making through a collaborative agreement
- Independent – an independent body working to achieve mutually agreed purpose and objectives.
Resources
Find out more about our successful parliamentary drop-in event in November, attended by over 50 MP, peers, and their colleagues.
An open letter to The Telegraph
The Overlapping Illness Alliance has written to The Telegraph in response to their article, How having a disability became cool, published on 5 September 2026.
The article raises serious concerns about the way complex chronic illness and disability are framed, particularly around fashion, identity, and social contagion and the credibility of people living with poorly understood conditions.
We believe these issues deserve scrutiny, but that scrutiny must be accurate, evidence based and grounded in the experiences of people directly affected.
If your organisation represents people affected by chronic illness or disability and would like to stand with us, you can add your support to the open letter using the form below. Please only submit the form if you are authorised to confirm support on behalf of your organisation.
Dear Editor,
We are writing to you in response to your recent article, How having a disability became cool. We are concerned by the article’s presentation of complex and often misunderstood health conditions through a narrative of fashion, identity and social contagion. The article reinforces dangerous stereotypes, stigma and suspicion towards people who already struggle to have their illnesses recognised and taken seriously.
The reality behind the headlines
The challenges faced by people living with complex chronic illness and disability are enormous. Years of uncertainty, delayed diagnosis, limited access to specialist care and underfunded research are commonplace while stigma and disbelief are experienced all too often.
For many of the people represented by our member organisations, disability has cost them careers, education, relationships, independence and the lives they expected to lead. There is nothing cool about that.
What the article overlooks
When people cannot find answers, understanding or appropriate support, they often turn to online communities for information, shared experience and connection. People who were once expected to hide their disabilities are now bravely speaking openly about their experiences.
Many already experience years of diagnostic delay, difficulty accessing appropriate care and having their symptoms dismissed. Presenting increased visibility or people finding shared language online as evidence of fashion or social contagion risks reinforcing those barriers.
What we are asking of The Telegraph
We are asking The Telegraph to review the framing and factual basis of the article and ensure future coverage of complex chronic illness and disability draws on appropriate evidence, clinical expertise and the voices of people directly affected.
Specifically, we would ask The Telegraph to review the use of comments from Dr Lesley Kavi of PoTS UK, which were taken from a separate interview and presented without the context in which they were originally given.
These issues deserve scrutiny. But that scrutiny should focus on the evidence, gaps in care and research, and the systems that are failing people, rather than questioning the legitimacy of those living with illness.
Signed by
- Sonya Chowdhury, Chief Executive Officer, Action for ME
- Joy Mason, CEO, Mast Cell Action
- Susan Booth, Chief Executive, The Ehlers-Danlos Support UK
- Sammie McFarland, CEO, Long Covid Kids
- Lesley Kavi, Chair, PoTs UK
- Carolyn Leary, Chair, ForwardME
- Nigel Rothband, Chair, Long Covid UK