MSK & Arthritis News

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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NICE Quality Standard – Rheumatoid arthritis in over 16s

In January 2020, NICE published an update on the Quality Standard for rheumatoid arthritis in over 16s (QS33). This quality standard covers assessing, diagnosing and managing rheumatoid arthritis in over 16s. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

NICE thanked organisations that submitted comments during the consultation period. All consultation comments were considered by the advisory committee (QSAC) and are documented in the minutes of this meeting.

Also available on the website is a summary of the consultation comments prepared by the NICE quality standards team and the full set of consultation comments.…

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Feedback on NICE behaviour change guideline

NICE is developing a guideline on Behaviour change: digital and mobile health interventions and ARMA has been invited to register as a stakeholder.

Behaviour change interventions have been considered in relation to the following areas:

  • eating patterns
  • physical activity
  • smoking
  • harmful drinking
  • sexual health
  • mental wellbeing

The consultation for this guideline opened on Friday 24 January. It will close at 5pm on Friday 6 March. If your organisation would like to have the opportunity to comment, you will first need to register as a stakeholder.…

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Third APPG for Axial Spondyloarthritis

The third meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Axial Spondyloarthritis took place on 29 January at Portcullis House in Westminster. The meeting focussed on the delay to diagnosis and included the launch of our Freedom of Information Inquiry report.

Huge thanks go to our speakers: Zoe Clark who gave an emotional account of her seven year wait for a diagnosis; Dr James Prior from Keele University who summarised the latest research into the area; Rebecca Adshead, physiotherapist at Whipp’s Cross Hospital, who gave an example of good practice, presenting on how the delay to diagnosis had been reduced locally; and finally Dr Raj Sengupta from the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases presented the draft Gold Standard to Diagnosis.…

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2020 brings Positivity, Optimism and Teamwork

I’ve read a few things about how hard it is to get going after the festive break, or “blue Monday” part way through January, rumoured to be the most depressing day of the year. I’ve had a very different experience this year with a positive start to 2020. January has involved conversations and planning for our 2020 activities. Lots of positivity from members and stakeholders means I’m optimistic and looking forward to a successful year.

One of the things our members want to focus on is multidisciplinary working – how different MSK professionals can work better together, with each other and with patients.…

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Health and Inactivity Conference 2020

Health and Inactivity 2020 conference

30 April 2020
“Prevention is better than cure“
Royal Society of Medicine

This conference aims to clearly articulate current evidence and provide insights on research, issues and solutions: the increasing demands on health and social care, obesity, old age, economic costs of treatment, Physical inactivity and Moving Medicine.

The event will tackle how to adopt a preventative health approach in your local areas and communities through the promotion and prescription of physical activity. It will seek to address the current skills gap across healthcare in this regard and provide a blueprint for the future delivery of health and social care.…

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Mental and physical health: practical ways to improve care

Two new outputs have been published by the Q Lab and Mind on improving care for people living with both mental and physical health problems:

  1. A practical guide to improving care that includes ideas, challenges to prepare for and examples to learn from.
  2. A set of service principles that can be used to inform decisions about improving, designing or commissioning services across mental health and persistent back and neck pain.

The outputs are a result of the 12-month partnership between the Q Improvement Lab (part of Q, delivered by the Health Foundation) and Mind – the mental health charity – on improving care across mental and physical health.…

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FLS-DB annual report 2020

The Fracture Liaison Service Database Annual report 2020, published in January by the Royal College of Physicians, provides the third national benchmark for the performance of FLSs at the patient level.

There were 58,979 of an expected 322,660 patients who sustained a fragility fracture in 2018 across England and Wales were reported on in the Fracture Liaison Service Database (FLS-DB). The FLS-DB used eleven key performance indicators (KPIs) for this report to measure secondary fracture prevention.

With over 300,000 fragility fractures in England and Wales detected every year in patients aged 50 years and over (NHFD, 2019), secondary fracture prevention is more important than ever.…

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Guest blog: A Decade of Real Change

by Clare Jacklin, Chief Executive, NRAS

I heard a good joke during the Christmas break –

Question: What do you think next year will bring?
Answer: How would I know…? I don’t have 2020 vision!

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

Now, I’m not for a moment saying we’re all going insane but I wonder how many of you reading this feel (as I do) a sense of déjà vu that we’ve heard the same thing over and over but little change has occurred.…

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