Tag: NHS

New Hips & Knees: Britian’s Longest Queue?

With numbers on the NHS waiting list at a record high of 7.75 million and rising, on the 30th of November 2023, ITV’s flagship current affairs programme ‘ITV Tonight’ focused on the huge waiting lists for joint replacement surgery: Tonight – Series 25 – Episode 35 – ITVX

With input from Versus Arthritis, Dr Zoe Williams investigates the health impacts on the estimated one million-plus people currently waiting, in some cases for years, for trauma and orthopaedic treatment. The programme looked behind those figures and into the lives of those waiting in pain for transformative orthopaedic treatment, explored whether surgery is the only option for patients in severe pain, and discussed how people can wait as well as possible whilst awaiting treatment.…

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Welsh Government publishes NHS Workforce Implementation Plan

workforce planThe National Workforce Implementation Plan outlines a series of practical actions that will act as enablers to accelerate the ten-year Workforce Strategy published in 2020. The Plan highlights a number of actions that need to progress immediately to address some of the most urgent pressures within the NHS now. Plans for specific professions and services like nursing, dentistry, or pharmacy will be published over the next two years.

Read the National workforce implementation plan on the www.gov.wales website.

Panorama NHS: Wait or Pay

The number of people waiting for hospital treatment in England has hit a record high of 5.61 million, as the NHS struggles to clear the growing backlog of cases caused by COVID-19. In a BBC Panorama programme on 27 September, Victoria Derbyshire met some of those on the waiting list and heard about the profound effects it is having on their lives.

Watch the programme

 

Building back inclusively

NHS reportThe NHS Confederation has published a briefing on Building back inclusively: Radical approaches to tackling the elective backlog.

There is evidence suggesting that waiting lists have grown more rapidly in more deprived areas during the pandemic. There are good reasons to believe that the current approach to elective care, whereby patients are treated in the order they present for care, exacerbates inequalities and worsens health outcomes. The briefing sets out a package of measures, including the politically uncomfortable step of proactively growing the waiting list to address this.…

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Workforce planning chart for MSK

The launch of NHS England’s Best MSK Health programme gives the population’s musculoskeletal health in England a focus and priority like never before, and much needed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

NHS England waiting times data shows people with serious MSK conditions needing diagnosis and treatment by rheumatology and elective care services are waiting much longer. The same is true for community MSK services and treatment. At the other end of the spectrum, for people who previously had no long-term conditions, the lockdown effect on mental well-being, exercise and weight-gain are significant obstacles to their musculoskeletal health now and into the future.…

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#BestMSKHealth programme launch

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:

  • Diagnostics
  • Orthopaedics
  • Rheumatology
  • Primary and Community MSK Provision
  • Spinal Services
  • Falls, Fragility Fractures and Osteoporosis
  • Data, Validation and Coding
  • Communications and Developing MSK Networks
  • Supporting those with Long Term MSK Conditions
  • Outpatients

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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White Paper on NHS Reform

Policy Paper

Integration and innovation: Working together to improve health and social care for all

Updated 11 February 2021

The Government published a white paper, “Integration and innovation: Working together to improve health and social care for all” on 11 February 2021. This sets out proposals for changes in legislation with the aim of enabling integration within the NHS in England and between the NHS, local government and other health system partners. The proposals are grouped under four themes: working together and supporting integration; stripping out needless bureaucracy; enhancing public confidence and accountability; and additional proposals to support social care, public health, and quality and safety.…

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New Report on workforce challenges

The role of osteopaths as AHPs in the NHS

An independent panel of leading healthcare professionals, chaired by Professor Adrian Newland CBE, has authored a report including its findings on the role of osteopaths as Allied Health Professionals within the NHS, and their potential to provide much needed additional capacity to the delivery of NHS MSK services to improve patient care.

The report was launched at a virtual event with NHS commissioners, at which Sue Brown, CEO of ARMA, joined as part of the panel.…

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NHS extends testing of non-urgent care waiting times target changes

If you are referred for specialist non-urgent treatment, you currently should expect to be treated within a maximum waiting time of 18 weeks. Over the last year, the NHS has been reviewing this 18-week target. ARMA has been involved in the advisory group looking at this change.

The NHS England board meeting on 30 January announced plans to extend the testing period for proposed changes to the 18-week elective care measure into 2020/21.

This joint response was issued by National Voices, The Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance, Versus Arthritis, the MS Society, the Neurological Alliance and Healthwatch England.…

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Guest blog: Social prescribing – connecting people with communities

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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