Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance
Influencing policy and care together for best lifelong musculoskeletal health
by Sarah Wright, Policy and Public Affairs Officer, ARMA
Well, what a time to be leaving ARMA! We’re finally starting to get the recognition that MSK deserves and this Alliance of organisations is now recognised as the place to go to for solutions to the MSK problem. But let’s not open the champagne just yet, there is still a great deal of work to do and what a perfect time to hand over the ARMA baton to someone to take it to the next level.…
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by Professor Anthony Woolf, Chair of ARMA and Chair of the Bone and Joint Decade: A Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health
Musculoskeletal conditions continue to be the greatest cause of disability in the UK according to the Global Burden of Disease study [click for summary], accounting for 30%. Low back pain is the greatest specific cause of disability and osteoarthritis is increasing with ageing of the population and increasing obesity. We, the MSK community, have always known the impact these problems have on people and society but now policy makers cannot escape from the facts and have to come up with policies to prevent and manage them more effectively.…
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by Dr Wendy Holden, Consultant Rheumatologist
Around one in seven people in the UK currently live with arthritis. This figure is expected to rise to one in four by 2030 [1]. It is the leading cause of pain and disability, costing the NHS a staggering £5 billion a year [2]. One in five of us consult their GP about a musculoskeletal problem like arthritis each year, that’s more than 100,000 consultations for arthritis every day [3].
Around 15,000 children and young people live with the condition [4].
by Lynsey Conway, UK Gout Society Secretariat
I first became involved with the UK Gout Society 13 years ago. Like many people who have never experienced this excruciatingly painful condition, I had treated gout as a bit of a joke and had bought into the common misconception that it was solely an affliction of old men – and a product of high living. I soon realised, however, after reading many desperate letters and hundreds of heart-wrenching emails, that gout was not a laughing matter – and could affect anyone.…
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by Dr Brian Lucas, Chair Royal College of Nursing‘s Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing (SOTN), Lead Nurse Education and Development The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Trust
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN)’s Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing (SOTN) is a professional forum with approximately 3,000 nurses who work in diverse roles within primary and secondary care. This diversity can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness: we are everywhere but spread thinly in places, so sometimes it is difficult to get our voice heard.…
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by Shantel Irwin, CEO Arthritis Action
Corks were flying on June 18th 2015 for me and my team at Arthritis Action as we officially launched with our new name, new look and new direction.
The last 12 months have been transformational for our charity. After more than a year of research, review, redesign and reform, Arthritis Action finally relaunched at The King’s Fund to an audience of more than 100 members and guests from across the musculoskeletal health sector.
We were delighted to welcome so many friends and colleagues at our event, which gave us the chance to outline our rationale for change, what we stand for, what we do and where we’re heading.…
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by Stuart Blackman, CEO of BackCare
I am really enjoying working with BackCare as the new Chief Executive. We are at the cusp of a new phase of development of the charity. BackCare is the UK’s national back pain charity, founded 1968 – our mission is to turn the tide on back pain, the world’s leading cause of human disability. We do this through research, education and outreach initiatives.
Our new website is now the primary platform through which we can reach out to our key stakeholders: patients, clinicians, researchers, educators and our corporate supporters.…
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Let’s start at the beginning. A Fracture Liaison Service is simply a dedicated co-ordinator whose sole purpose it is to find people who are aged over 50 years and have broken a bone.
by Matthew Bennett, President, British Chiropractic Association
As we all know back pain is the single biggest cause of disability in the UK according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. Despite this huge cost both in human and financial terms, care can often appear to be disjointed. In 2009 NICE published guidelines on the Management of persistent non-specific low back pain but many regions in the UK still struggle to implement the guidance and with many different providers being involved in the management of back pain an integrated approach is elusive.
