New UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham enters Downing Street with a promise that is both ambitious and necessary: “good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart.” As Social Enterprise UK argues, delivering this vision requires government to embrace social enterprises not as peripheral actors, but as core partners in shaping policy, reforming public services, and driving inclusive economic growth.
Stripy Lightbulb CIC strongly agrees, and we believe M.E./C.F.S. is one of the clearest examples of where social enterprise can unlock rapid, meaningful social change, perfectly placed (waiting in the wings) for his first 100 days.
ME/CFS affects an estimated 400,000* people in the UK, yet remains one of the most misunderstood and neglected health conditions. Professionals across health, education, social care, and welfare systems still lack the training needed to support patients effectively. This isn’t a failure of individuals, it’s a systemic gap.
Stripy Lightbulb CIC exists, and was founded in 2018, to close that gap.
We train professionals on M.E./C.F.S. as a social issue, not just a medical one. Our work helps teachers understand the realities of post-exertional malaise, helps employers support staff, and helps health professionals recognise the condition earlier and more accurately.
Every social enterprise serves the community it represents. Our community is people with M.E./C.F.S., and they are at the heart of everything we do. Our training is person-centred – created by a person with lived experience of it, through the lens of how it feels to have M.E./C.F.S rather than through text book definitions.
Social Enterprise UK is clear: social enterprises cannot continue to sit between departments, treated as neither business nor civil society. This has been a stumbling block for Stripy Lightbulb CIC for 8 years, Governments don’t seem to know how to deal with us – we are not a charity, and not a ‘for profit’ business either. Burnham’s government must formally recognise social enterprises as essential contributors to economic and social policy.
Stripy Lightbulb CIC is perfectly placed to support this agenda.
By inviting us, and organisations like us, into policy conversations, government would be proactively including communities, lived experience, and social change in decision-making. This is how you build policy that works in the real world.
We need seats at the tables where ME/CFS is shaped:
- DHSC, to embed ME/CFS understanding into health policy and professional training. Something we have asked for since 2018, but had that door firmly slammed in our face.
- Department for Education, to ensure schools can support affected pupils
- DWP , to reform assessments that currently disadvantage M.E./C.F.S. claimants. DWP would rather create something ‘in-house’ over many months, when our evidence-based, CPD-accredited training is available 24/7 and is waiting to be picked up ‘off the shelf’.
These are three departments where we can help immediately, and where change is urgently needed.
Burnham has spoken about building an economy that works for working‑class communities. Social enterprises, such as ours, already do this daily. We generate revenue, innovate in public services, and reinvest profits into solving the very problems government struggles to address.
Stripy Lightbulb CIC’s Articles of Association state we will reinvest 50% of our surplus directly into M.E./C.F.S. research, something previous governments have neglected to fund equitably or adequately.
By supporting us, Burnham can:
- accelerate social change
- improve outcomes for M.E./C.F.S. patients
- reduce long-term pressure on public services
- help fund desperately needed biomedical research
This is exactly what Social Enterprise UK means when they say social enterprises should be delivery partners, not afterthoughts.
The media and public are demanding rapid change. Burnham has an opportunity to set a new tone , one where social enterprises are embraced, not left tinkering at the fringes. To create meaningful change quickly, he must embrace the social enterprise movement. Not symbolically or selectively, but structurally.
Social enterprises like Stripy Lightbulb CIC are ready to help. We have the expertise, and the forward‑thinking approach, needed to transform M.E./C.F.S. from a neglected condition into a recognised social issue with proper support systems.
All we need now is a seat at the table.
A message to the new Prime Minister
We wish Andy Burnham well as he begins this new chapter. His vision is bold, and his commitment to social value is encouraging. But to deliver “hope in every heart,” he must work with the organisations already embedded in communities, already solving problems, already driving social change.
In this moment of political renewal, we urge Andy Burnham to recognise that social enterprises are not peripheral actors but essential partners in delivering the fairer, more hopeful country he has promised. Help us to help our communities; help us to help you deliver your mission. Stripy Lightbulb CIC already works at the heart of the M.E./C.F.S. community, providing the training and insight professionals urgently need, reinvesting 50% of our surplus into M.E./C.F.S. research, and driving social change where government systems have long fallen short. By bringing social enterprises into the room, into DHSC, the Department for Education, the DWP and beyond, you invite lived experience, community expertise, innovation, and social value directly into policymaking. This is how change accelerates. This is how public services become more humane and person-centred, and how hope reaches every heart. Social enterprises are ready to get to work; all we need now is a seat at the table.
*1.3 million meet M.E./C.F.S diagnostic criteria in the UK, the majority are undiagnosed.
