Alongside the pain and misery of the Covid-19 pandemic there have also been some beneficial side effects – quiet streets and skies, birdsong, less pollution. This is also true in the world of MSK. ARMA has been a champion for the NHS Change Challenge, a project to identify the new and innovative ways of working that have been rapidly developed across the NHS and to ensure beneficial changes are captured and locked in. I think it is no accident that NHS Improvement chose to pilot this in MSK. The way in which the MSK sector has come together to collaborate and lead the changes needed to respond to the crisis has been outstanding.
The Challenge now has over 100 initiatives posted in just two weeks. Everything from online pain management classes to improved data collection, from virtual MDT meetings to different ways to deliver medication and avoid the need for hospital visits. It’s fantastic to be championing this project, encouraging the widest range of professionals to submit ideas and ensuring patient views inform the decisions about how to take this forward.
We are beginning to see the lockdown ease and services planning how to restart some of what has been put on hold. It’s clear this is going to be a long, slow process. ARMA’s involvement in a lot of different pieces of work will continue. We’re pushing for better support for people shielding, including advice on return to school for children shielding. We’re enabling collaboration to support private MSK practitioners to make the right decisions about when and how to return to work. Many people with MSK conditions choose to see a private healthcare practitioner and their contribution will help ease the pressure faced by the NHS. We’re continuing to raise the many issues coming through to patient organisation helplines and to contribute to NHS MSK services response to the crisis.
We are also beginning to think about restarting some of our business as usual. Tickets for our conference, Working Together to change the face of MSK, are now on sale. I’m looking forward to discussions with some of the most innovative and forward thinking people in the world of MSK. So if you want to join us, book now while early bird rates apply. Whether we deliver it as planned, as a conventional conference, or online, it will be a fantastic day, no doubt informed by the NHS Change Challenge as well as some brilliant work that was happening before Covid-19.
We also continue to deliver our webinars during lockdown, with one in April and one this week, both with a paediatric theme. Thanks to those presenters who have given their time to enable this.
Like everyone else we will continue to balance responding to the crisis with delivering our existing plans. 2020 will not turn out quite as I expected. Thanks to the NHS Change Challenge, and some extraordinary collaboration, it will be a year of progress for MSK.