Commissioning | ARMA

New resources for leaders to work together around the NHS Long Term Plan

The Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) has developed free support resources for health, care and voluntary sector leaders who want to drive action through partnership working around the NHS Long Term Plan. The resources include online learning, webinars, workshops, coaching and individual support and are aimed at ICS/STP leads, commissioners, clinicians, and professionals from the voluntary sector.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits local healthcare systems to working in a new way, including a focus on prevention and reducing health inequalities.…

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Ration Watch – Surgery

ARMA has been working with the Medical Technology Group (MTG) to raise concerns about increasing rationing of joint replacement surgery.

The MTG is a coalition of patient groups, research charities and medical device manufacturers working to improve access to cost effective medical technologies for everyone who needs them. MTG has concerns about treatment rationing in general and have launched the Ration Watch campaign to highlight care inequality and the impact it has on patients’ lives.

Ration Watch aims to expose the scale of rationing and the issues around local commissioning across the UK.…

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Guest blog: Time for the final Cinderella to attend the ball?

Musculoskeletal support professionals in the community

by Dr Rob Hampton, GP and Occupational Physician

Across the world, chronic musculoskeletal conditions such as osteoarthritis, inflammatory disorders and common regional conditions such as back, neck, shoulder, hip and knee pain now represent the single greatest cause of years lived with disability ¹. When measuring their negative impact on employment, self-reported wellbeing and day-to-day function, chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions are every bit as invasive as other chronic conditions such as heart failure, diabetes and COPD.…

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NHSE planning and contracting guidance summary

Since the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) was published on 7 January 2019, the NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance 2019/20 has been released. It gives guidance on how the additional funding settlement for the NHS should be used.

Key points of interest are:

It is the start of the process of producing the local plans that will be the implementation of the NHS LTP. For 2019/20, every NHS trust, NHS foundation trust and clinical commissioning group (CCG), will need to agree organisation-level operational plans which combine to form a coherent system-level operating plan.…

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CEO update – Prevention: putting MSK centre stage

Prevention seems to have been the theme of my February. The possibility that a lot of the pain and disability of MSK conditions might be prevented, and that this is being taken seriously is an exciting prospect. Even where the conditions can’t be prevented, good self-management support can make a big difference to the impact of the condition. The Government is clear that the future sustainability of the NHS depends on prevention, and that it wants to improve healthy life expectancy by at least five extra years, by 2035.…

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GP contract reform

Since the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) was published on 7 January 2019 a new document, Investment and evolution: A five-year framework for GP contract reform to implement The NHS Long Term Plan, has been released which includes the roll out of the Primary Care Networks model. Here’s a summary of the relevant MSK elements.

The publication covers the following areas:

Addressing the workforce shortfall
Solving Indemnity Costs
Improving the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF)
Introducing the Network Contract DES
Going ‘digital-first’ and improving access
Delivering new network services
Guaranteeing investment
Supporting research and testing future contract changes
Schedule of future contract changes and development work

Workforce

Workforce is identified as the priority for primary care.…

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Universal Personalised Care – a summary

Since the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) was published on 7 January 2019, the Universal Personalised Care: Implementing the Comprehensive Model has been published.

The document defines personalised care: people have choice and control over the way their care is planned and delivered based on ‘what matters’ to them and their individual strengths, needs and preferences.

There are six components to the model:

Shared decision making
Personalised care and support planning
Enabling choice, including legal rights to choice
Social prescribing and community-based support
Supported self-management
Personal health budgets and integrated personal budgets.

…

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CEO update: Let’s all get on the bandwagon together

As I sat down to write this, NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens was on the radio talking about plans to increase the ability of patients to see pharmacists and physios rather than a GP as their first point of contact in the NHS. Ensuring we have the right workforce to meet the growing health needs of an ageing population is a real challenge. ARMA’s different professional members have a lot to contribute, as I discovered when I spent a day at the Royal College of Chiropractors conference.…

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NICE guideline – Shared decision making

The draft scope for this NICE guideline is now out for consultation; it is a valuable opportunity to ensure that the guideline considers issues important to your members. The consultation page contains the documents, background papers and instructions on how to comment.

The consultation on this draft scope will close at 5pm on 15 February 2019.

NICE will also be recruiting people with a practitioner, care provider or commissioner background and lay members (people using services, family members and carers, and members of the public and community or voluntary sector) to join the Committee for this guideline.…

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Webinar – How to implement NBRPP

How to implement the National Back and Radicular Pain Pathway (NBRPP)

12.30 – 1.30pm Friday 8 March 2019

The webinar aims to support the implementation of the National Back and Radicular Pain Pathway. It will initially explain the pathway and present data from early implementers to help make the case for change in your local area. The physiotherapist who led the implementation of the NBRPP across Cheshire and Merseyside as part of the Walton Centre Vanguard Project will talk about her experiences, common barriers to implementation and strategies to overcome them.…

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