Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance
Influencing policy and care together for best lifelong musculoskeletal health
I saw a tweet this morning from a local provider partnership seeking exercise instructors willing to train in falls management. The challenge of workforce is ever present in the NHS right now. I think we need to think more creatively and use the breadth of the workforce we have if we are ever to deliver on our ambition to improve the MSK health of the population and ensure excellent services for those who need them.
Community MSK is the backbone of MSK.…
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Innovative multi-professional student placement project shows positive outcomes
A pilot in Allied Health Professions student placements, funded by Health Education England and facilitated by the Institute of Osteopathy, has shown how an innovative interprofessional approach can deliver positive outcomes for students and educators, ultimately facilitating improved patient outcomes through the delivery of multi-disciplinary care.
Read more on the iO website.
NHS England has launched a new programme with the aim of sustaining the delivery of evidence-informed, personalised, high-quality integrated healthcare of value to all. This new initiative, part of the Pathways for Better Health Programme, significantly increases the resource to support MSK service delivery.
The programme covers the breadth of MSK including orthopaedics, rheumatology and pain, spanning primary secondary and community services. You can watch the launch event here.
The programme has ten workstreams, each led by a relevant clinical specialist:
There is the intention to ensure that the programme is coproduced involving the range of stakeholders including people with lived experience and patient organisations.…
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by Greta McLachlan, Fellow at the Strategic planning and development cell, NHS England and Improvement, part of the Change Challenge Collaborative.
The change challenge collaborative is a group of professionals who have come together to work across the MSK, orthopaedic and rheumatology specialties to try and capture beneficial changes that have occurred within the NHS during COVID- 19. The aim being to try and capture these changes and ideas to ensure that these innovations are not lost when the NHS comes out of its pandemic measures.…
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Guest blog by William Pett – Senior Policy Advisor, NHS Confederation
As people grow older, health conditions often become both more complex and chronic. Evidence shows that rates of those living with multimorbidity rise significantly with age; a recent study revealed that 30% of adults aged 45 to 64 years report at least two chronic conditions, increasing to 65% of adults aged 65 to 84 years and more than 80% for those above 85 years old.
For older people living with multimorbidity, musculoskeletal conditions are common.…
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ARMA joins Public Health England and the Centre for Ageing Better to make England the best place to grow old, because musculoskeletal health is vital to healthy ageing.
ARMA joined over sixty high-profile organisations in the UK’s health, housing, employment, research and voluntary sectors to launch a landmark shared vision on healthy ageing.
There are five key principles: prioritising prevention and public health; creating opportunities for people to contribute to society as they age; fostering accessible and inclusive homes and neighbourhoods so everyone can live where they want; narrowing inequalities in healthy ageing; and challenging ageist language, culture and practices.…
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by Simon Chapman, Deputy Director, Personalised Care Group, NHS England.
Twelve years ago I was working for a charity just north of Kings Cross. My office looked out on a derelict area of forgotten buildings and toxic land. Over the next 10 years, things gradually changed as the infrastructure was renewed: old buildings were renovated and new spaces and buildings were created for people and communities to visit, use and inhabit. Now, where there was wasteland, parents watch their children play in the Granary Square fountains.…
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by Sue Brown, CEO ARMA
I write this reflecting on my day yesterday, which was unexpectedly dominated by discussions on pain. Pain is, of course, something we all talk about a fair bit in the MSK health world, as it’s one of the shared factors that cuts across all MSK conditions. I’m increasingly realising it is something we don’t always deal with particularly well.
My day yesterday began with reading New Scientist on the train, including an article about UK doctors’ concerns that we will follow the US into an opioid crisis.…
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