Category: Resources

Everything you wanted to know about setting up a Musculoskeletal Service but were afraid to ask!

Sign up for the webinar rescheduled for 15 February 2019 at 12.30—1.30pm

The rescheduled webinar on Friday 15 February 2019 describes the set-up of the Telford Musculoskeletal Service and some of the problems encountered along the way, with the solutions used.

The Service is a single-point of access for rheumatology, pain, physiotherapy, orthopaedics and musculoskeletal services in the NHS within Telford. The service is a prime vendor type model with Shropshire Community Trust holding the main contract and sub-contracting to other NHS and Private providers in the locality.…

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A Vision for Population Health

Despite improvements in life expectancy, England lags behind other countries on many key health outcomes. A new report from the Kings Fund argues that to address this, we need to move away from a system just focused on diagnosing and treating illness towards one that is based on promoting wellbeing and preventing ill health.

Population health is an approach that aims to improve physical and mental health outcomes, promote wellbeing and reduce health inequalities across an entire population. The King’s Fund’s vision is to reduce inequalities and achieve health outcomes on a par with the best in the world by focusing on population health locally, regionally and nationally.…

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New GBD 2016 UK paper

A new paper published [24 October 2018] in the Lancet highlights regional imbalances in health and reveals the huge burden of disability linked to long-term conditions such as low back and neck pain, anxiety and depression, highlighting the need for health services to adapt to managing these conditions. 

The study uses GBD 2016 data on mortality, causes of death, and disability to analyse the burden of disease in the countries of the UK and within local authorities in England by deprivation quintile.…

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New video: webinar on commissioning a community-based service

You can now see the video from our recent webinar in the Musculoskeletal Networks series:
Commissioning for Quality: Community-based Rheumatology Service

Presented by Erica Gould, Nurse Consultant at Community Rheumatology Service Modality Partnership, the webinar outlines how a community-based rheumatology service can provide effective management of rheumatology patients, with benefits both to the patients and the usage of clinical resources.

Findings from the pilot study demonstrated that patients requiring disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS) can easily be managed in a community setting.…

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Back to school – Educators Guide to the Hypermobile Student

September always kicks off with a huge surge in requests to the Hypermobility Syndromes Association for assistance with children struggling with school. The HMSA produces a booklet called ‘The Educators Guide to the Hypermobile Student‘. This booklet, beneficial for parents and those in education, can help explain the impact of these conditions on the individual in an educational setting. The guide is available from the website shop, hypermobilityshop.org, and is currently at a reduced price.

Students going into secondary school often start having problems because of the environmental change.…

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Adopting the holistic approach

Guest blog by Professor Anthony Woolf, Chair, ARMA

[Republished from the NHS England blog]

Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions have a huge negative impact on the health of the population.  People with MSK problems making a first approach to health services can find it difficult to access the right support and some experience delays in getting the correct diagnosis and management, which can result in prolonged impact such as ongoing pain and work loss.

Launched a few weeks ago, the Musculoskeletal core capabilities framework for first point of contact practitioners has been developed in partnership by the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA), NHS England, Skills for Health, Public Health England and Health Education England to ensure that people with MSK problems get what they have expressed they want – rapid access to diagnosis and early management advice, being fully involved in their care through shared decision-making and self-management. …

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Training: Core Skills in Musculoskeletal Care

Arthritis Research UK has developed the educational package Core Skills in Musculoskeletal Care. It has been created by GPs for GPs and aims to support professionals ‘get the basics right’ in musculoskeletal care and equip GPs with the essential knowledge, skill and confidence needed to manage the most common MSK conditions seen in primary and community care.

The package consists of the popular e-learning module hosted on the RCGP website as well as the new hands-on, interactive workshops.

See a video of the workshop in action.…

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New publication: ARMA policy position paper on supported self-management

ARMA policy teams and CEOs collaborated to agree a Policy Position Paper on Supported Self-Management for People with Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Conditions. The Policy Position Paper sets out recommendations for change.

The evidence identifies the importance of patients as partners in their own care. While people with musculoskeletal conditions can play a pivotal role in their condition, most are simply unaware of the difference they can make. That’s why the Alliance believes people should be supported to take a proactive role in their health, to live well, feeling confident and in control of their condition with supported self-management.…

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NIHR research into physiotherapy for musculoskeletal conditions

The MSK physio-themed review is now live.

Moving Forward – Physiotherapy for Musculoskeletal Health and Wellbeing  highlights evidence from the National Institute for Health Research and others on why research in this area matters, assessment and matching patients to treatment, restoring musculoskeletal health and maintaining musculoskeletal wellbeing.

 

It features:

  • 37 published studies
  • 25 ongoing research projects
  • Questions to ask your physiotherapy musculoskeletal services

 

You can download this review from the National Institute for Health Research website.

Delay to diagnosis in musculoskeletal disease

Introduction

Across a range of MSK conditions there is evidence of significant delays to diagnosis which result in avoidable morbidity and mortality. GPs have a critical role to play in reducing time to diagnosis. This article looks at the delays, their impact, and the resources available to GPs to support their referral decisions. Our simple message is #ThinkRheum.

Delay to diagnosis

Significant delay from symptom onset to diagnosis has been seen across a range of MSK conditions: an average of 6.4 yeas in Lupus [1], 8.5 years in axial spondyloarthrtis (axial SpA) [2] and an estimated 10 years in Ehlers-Danos syndromes (EDS).…

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