Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance
Influencing policy and care together for best lifelong musculoskeletal health
Versus Arthritis are excited to launch their newly updated paediatric clinical assessment guide for healthcare professionals supporting children and young people with arthritis and MSK conditions.
The guide can be accessed online or a free printed copy can be ordered from the Versus Arthritis online shop.
Did you know a bone breaks every minute in the UK? Join over 350,000 people taking action to protect their bone health.
Check your risk today using the ROS’s quick easy and free online risk checker and get a personalised report in less than 5 minutes. It’s never too early or too late to start looking after your bones.
The Diploma in MSK Medicine recognises the excellence in MSK care and provides a benchmark of quality for both service commissioners and patients.
The Diploma has been developed to support the multi-professional workforce that is evolving to meet the growing need for optimal care of musculoskeletal conditions by demonstrating applied knowledge in this important field.
Learn more and register your interest here.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis and think that oral health shouldn’t be top of your list – you may be surprised! Findings from recent studies suggest that there are significant links between oral health and those living with RA and other common co-morbidities such as heart disease and diabetes.
In this NRAS Live chat, Ailsa will be joined by Iain Chapple, Professor of Periodontology at University of Birmingham and Maddy Roberts, our Families and Young Peoples Service Manager from the JIA-at-NRAS team.…
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Insights from the Versus Arthritis National MSK Health Data GroupThis month’s guest blog comes from Versus Arthritis with guest bloggers Karen Hodgson, Head of Health Intelligence, and Emma Tomlinson, Health Intelligence Portfolio Officer sharing insights from the MSK Health Data Group and hopes for its future.
Over 10 million people live with arthritis in the UK. It can impact on all aspects of our lives affecting how we move, think, and feel. To effectively treat, manage, and ultimately prevent arthritis we need to understand the experiences of people with arthritis, their access to health services and factors that impact their conditions. …
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by Sue Brown, CEO ARMA
On the morning of 5 July 2024, ARMA members gathered on Zoom for initial reflections on the election result. The date had been set many months ago, and it wasn’t the ideal timing. Since then, we have had a little more time to see just what the new government would do. It is too early to say if this will be a turning point for the future of health and healthcare, but they have certainly not wasted any time.…
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ARMA is delighted to welcome our newest Trustee Noha Al Afifi, interim CEO of Arthritis Action. We look forward to working closely with Noha and know the wealth of experience she brings to ARMA will be an asset to the organisation.
Speaking about her election Noha stated: “I am proud and pleased to be joining the Arthritis & Musculoskeletal Alliance Board and look forward to working with them as a Trustee, raising the awareness of the impact MSK conditions have on all members of society and how we can tackle health inequalities.”
NHS funding now available for First Contact Practitioner Osteopaths
NHS funding is now available for employing osteopaths in primary care roles such as First Contact Practitioners (FCP). This follows significant lobbying by the Institute of Osteopathy and is part of the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) 2024-2025 contract.
ARMA has joined a range of charities adding their support to Forgotten Lives UK, a patient-led group advocating for better protection of those who are immunocompromised.
Approximately 1.8m people in the UK have conditions that render them more vulnerable to COVID-19, due to being immunocompromised. Forgotten Lives UK advocates for their ongoing protection through prophylaxis drugs and other preventative measures, both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical.
You can read more about the campaign work of Forgotten Lives UK here: Forgotten Lives UK – Protecting the Immunocompromised
Orthopaedic Research (ORUK) recently hosted the first National Bunions Think Tank, in Association with Rosetrees Trust. The Think Tank included many of the country’s leading foot health experts, including primary care physicians, podiatrists, physiotherapists, surgeons, academics and research funders, who came together to discuss ways to improve patient care and identify areas requiring further research. 
The consensus in the room was that bunions, despite affecting around 10 million people in the UK alone, is underfunded and under-recognised as a serious, debilitating condition that impacts people’s personal, social and professional lives.…
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