Guest Blog | ARMA

Health Inequalities – the wider context and challenges to a self-management approach

by Noha Al-Afifi, Interim CEO, Arthritis Action

There’s no doubt from the ARMA Act Now report that the current tough economic environment is exacerbating inequalities in healthcare provision and access. With the scale of the task, it could be easy to get overwhelmed by the challenge. As important is that the report urges all to recognise the wider context and environment in which healthcare sits and to encourage small scale, localised action plans.

Helping both our members and the wider public to take control of their arthritis has inevitably led us to provide resources beyond health advice.…

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Engaging with NASS, my national RMD organisation…

…how it enriched and changed the quality of my life.

Guest blog from EULAR Edgar Stene Prize essay competition entrant, Geoff Lindsay.

I’ve lived with axial Spa for 50 years.

November 1973. I’m 24. Every time I put on my tight bell-bottom Levi jeans I got bad pain in my left hip. Am I going crazy? How can wearing jeans give me a pain so bad I can hardly walk? Walking up stairs is very painful. Stepping up a kerb is a task I would limp another twenty metres to avoid.…

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Co-production works well locally – let’s ensure it happens nationally

Guest blog by Rachel Power, Chief Executive, Patients Association

At the Patients Association, we’ve seen the transformative power of shared decision making and patient partnership.

Work we’ve done in partnership to empower patients with musculoskeletal conditions by giving them the tools to make informed treatment choices demonstrated how patient partnership delivers for patients and the NHS.

That project with patients, healthcare professionals, the Patient Information Forum and Nottinghamshire ICB focused on removing barriers to shared decision making. As a collective, participants reviewed patient resources – some already developed, others in development – designed to support patients’ decisions.…

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Your SpAce: Support Self-management for People Living with Axial SpA

Guest blog by Zoë Clark, Programme Manager at the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society

The National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society (NASS) Patient Values survey found a need for easily accessible self-management advice for people living with axial spondyloarthritis (axial SpA). While 77% of people living with axial SpA felt it was very important to receive advice on self-management, only 33% were positive about their own experience. We wanted to bridge that gap to support patients and healthcare professionals to access vital advice on managing axial SpA and the impact it has on a person’s life.…

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Co-production in action – voices heard and lessons learned

Guest blog, with thanks to the panellists Claire Blamey, Gareth Gault and Shabir Aziz for their feedback.

As we prepare for publication of the report of the ARMA Inquiry into MSK and health inequalities, we look back at how the voices of those with lived experience of MSK conditions have been vital – from the initial evidence gathering to discussion of the dissemination plan.

At the inception of the inquiry process we recruited a panel of paid lived experience experts who brought their unique perspectives of different MSK conditions, backgrounds, and experience of the health system and MSK services to discussions.…

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Economic Growth and Increased Productivity: Boosting the MSK Health of the Working Nation

Guest blog by Dr Arash Angadji, Chief Executive, Orthopaedic Research UK

The nation has a musculoskeletal (MSK) problem. As a society we have tended to focus on MSK issues relating to the ageing population, but the latest figures on the number of people not working in the UK due to long-term sickness (including poor MSK health) highlight how we need to start thinking of poor MSK health as a multi-generational challenge. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), more than two and a half million people are currently unemployed due to health-related issues, including back and neck pain.…

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Guest blog: People before Technology – Best Musculoskeletal Health for all

by Melanie Martin, Senior Delivery Manager (Innovation) & Digital Lead, Best MSK Health Programme, NHS England

Technology plays an ever-increasing role in our daily lives, including in healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic has made an indelible impact upon the uptake of healthcare technology with 30 million people accessing the NHS app and the opportunity to book repeat prescriptions, access a Covid travel pass and sign up to organ donation. We have learnt how people adapted quickly to the delivery of musculoskeletal (MSK) services during the pandemic, for example through telephone and video consultations. …

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A view from Wales: Overly optimistic or truly evolutionary, time will tell.

Reflection from the national clinical co-leads for the Welsh national musculoskeletal clinical Network

Dr Meinir Jones, General Practitioner, Associate Medical in HDUHB;
Dr Rob Letchford, Consultant Physiotherapist MSK rehabilitation in CAVUHB

Six months into these new roles, we find ourselves reaching a peak of optimism and enthusiasm for the future. In the aftermath of a devastating two years that has negatively affected so many, and left previously stretched health services with unprecedented challenges, that seems a ridiculous position to hold. Perhaps it’s our optimism (given the positive effects on health we recommend that you try it out too!).…

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Guest blog: Narrowing the gap

by Bola Owolabi, Director, National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme

Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society. They arise because of the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age. These conditions influence how we think, feel and act and can impact both our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

This #BoneJointWeek I am delighted to see the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance’s commitment to taking action to narrow musculoskeletal health inequalities, particularly with regards to listening to the experiences of underserved communities and working in partnership to improve care.…

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Guest blog: How treating my RMD has influenced my hopes for the future

By anonymous writer for the EULAR Edgar Stene Prize essay competition, runner-up in the UK national competition

Pain is not something that anyone wants. Chronic illness will rob so much of a person that often, we are only able to see it as stealing from life. For myself, I will never seek to deny the anguish of the first years of my illness with rheumatoid arthritis. I was a shadow, hiding in the corners and trying to find a way out of myself.…

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