Author: Garreth

PMRGCAuk seeks new Chair of Trustees

Penny Denby will be stepping down in summer 2018 after three years as Chair of Trustees at Polymyalgia Rheumatica & Giant Cell Arteritis UK. 

The charity is looking to appoint a new Chair before Penny finishes her term, so that there can be a substantial handover period. 

PMRGCAuk is an ambitious charity that achieves a great deal with very limited resources. Their membership and profile are growing and this is very exciting time to be getting involved. The new Chair will work closely with the Director to play a leading role in the charity’s future development.…

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Bringing arthritis communities together to mark World Arthritis Day

To mark the 22nd World Arthritis Day on 12th October and Bone and Joint Week from 12th-20th October, Arthritis Action held education and support group meetings in various locations across the UK for people with arthritis during the whole month of October.

Attendees heard from a variety of speakers on a range of issues affecting those with arthritis, including healthy eating, exercise, and physical therapy.

Leicester-based Arthritis Action Member Pauline Walker, aged 60, said: “I’m an Arthritis Action member and have enjoyed the local Group meetings in which members, old and new have shared experiences and useful tips on managing arthritis.…

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Flare Rollercoaster workshop, Portsmouth

Arthritis and Connective Tissue Disease flares are normal but do have an impact on every aspect of your life. In simple terms a flare can be described as “a sudden increased severity in symptoms that can hit at any time”.

For many patients having a flare is disheartening, they feel that they have been managing their arthritis/connective tissue disease well and doing all the right things by taking their medication regularly and maintaining a healthy balance of exercise and activity, then one day they wake up and feel like it was all for nothing.…

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BSR’s UK Guideline for the Management of Adults with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

The first UK guideline on the care of adults with systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) was published by the British Society of Rheumatology at the start of October 2017. The clinical guideline is accredited by the National Institute for Health and care Excellence (NICE) which recognises robust, evidence-based and critically evaluated high-quality processes applied to developing a guideline. The eagerly anticipated guideline covers diagnosis, assessment, monitoring and treatment of patients with mild, moderate and severe lupus and is mainly for health professionals in secondary care.…

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The BOA’s Four New Commissioning Guides

The British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) is pleased to announce the recent publication of four revised commissioning guides with the Royal College of Surgeons of England. These NICE-accredited guides set out best practice care pathways to assist CCGs in designing optimal care for their populations. We are extremely grateful to all those involved in the rigorous development and accreditation processes. The guides, which can be found here, are:

  • Pain Arising from the Hip in Adults
  • Painful Deformed Great Toe in Adults
  • Painful Osteoarthritis of the Knee
  • Treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Following the recent BOA and ARMA position statements on the rationing of elective orthopaedic services, we are urging stakeholders to consider these guides and to promote their adoption wherever appropriate with local CCGs.…

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Primary Care Rheumatology Society Annual Conference 2017

The annual PCRS Conference in York features a highly respected hands-on, friendly educational conference for GPSIs in MSK + Rheumatology where you can learn from, build contacts and mix with your peers.

Start Time           Thursday, 16th of November 2017 – 12:00
End Time             Saturday, 18th of November 2017 – 13:00

There are still places available and you can now see the full conference programme with expanded details of the Workshop sessions, and download the delegate application form here.

For details of the venue, visit the event’s page on the PCR Society website.

New National Osteoporosis Society Research Strategy to launch 2nd October

The National Osteoporosis Society is pleased to announce that it will shortly be launching a new Research Strategy and grants funding round. The upcoming launch reiterates the continued and central importance that research has within the Charity.

The new strategy is the result of extensive consultation with academics, clinicians and people living with osteoporosis, and clearly outlines what the Charity wants to achieve through research over the next five to ten years, and how it plans to achieve it.

Whilst you’ll have to wait until 2nd October to find out all the details for our exciting new Research Strategy, for now we can share with you the strategy’s three main goals:

  • To ensure that we support research that makes a real difference – by working closely with others to agree what research should be carried out in the future.
…

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Work Matters – NRAS

NRAS will be launching its work report, Work Matters, in Parliament on 11th October. We are delighted that the Minister for Disabled People, Work and Health, Penny Mordaunt MP, will be joining us at the event. You can follow the proceedings live on twitter by following @NRAS_UK. The report will then be available to order or download from the NRAS website.

Upcoming NRAS events

The Cambridgeshire RA information evening will take place on 19th October from 7pm to 8.30pm (refreshments from 6.45pm) with the support of the rheumatology team at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. …

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Get a grip on PIP

As an active member of the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC), the Arthritis Research UK policy, campaigns and public affairs teams have worked closely with the Chairs of the coalition on the DBC’s new report. The report demonstrating the huge problems which many people experience when trying to access Personal Independence Payments, and includes statistics from the DBC Big Benefits Survey – with over 1500 responses specifically from people with musculoskeletal conditions- and an in depth case study provided by Arthritis Research UK about Debs, who had her PIP reduced and lost her Motability care as a result.…

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Rehab Matters – Raising the profile of community rehabilitation

Guest blog by Catherine Pope, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Chair.

Jane left hospital after a stroke and was seen promptly at home by a physiotherapist, who worked with other members of the multidisciplinary team to develop a plan for her recovery.

Members of that team visited regularly, and Jane made strong progress – supported by her husband, Robert – towards achieving her goal of getting back out into her garden and getting her green fingers dirty.

Meanwhile, another Jane, in another part of the country – perhaps even the neighbouring town – realised no such goal.…

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