Category: Health Policy

New guidance on corticosteroids

The guidance ‘Management of Patients with Musculoskeletal and Rheumatic Conditions on Corticosteroids’ has now been superseded by the following guidance, issued on 16 June 2020. It applies to:

Management of patients with musculoskeletal and rheumatic conditions who:

  • – are on corticosteroids
  • – require initiation of oral/IV corticosteroids
  • – require a corticosteroid injection

The new guidance can be read here [open PDF].

SOMM’s Injection Module Coordinator, Paul Hattam, has submitted his view on the guidance for corticosteroid injection that has been provided throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as an open letter to the CSP’s ‘Frontline’ magazine.…

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The changing landscape of orthopaedic services in light of the COVID-19 pandemic

Guest blog by

Cormac Kelly, Consultant Upper Limb Surgeon at The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

and

Peter Kay, National Orthopaedic Alliance (NOA) Lead Clinician and Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The COVID-19 crisis has changed the delivery of planned orthopaedic surgery drastically. As the pandemic continues to subside, the NHS, with various guidance from Public Health England, Medical and Surgical Colleges, the British Orthopaedic Association, and others, is working on a plan to get surgery back on track.…

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Guest blog: MSK First Contact Practitioner roles

MSK First Contact Practitioner roles; are they fit for the future for Primary Care?

by
Amanda Hensman-Crook FCSP, HEE AHP National Clinical Fellow, Consultant MSK Physiotherapist
Neil Langridge FCSP, Consultant MSK Physiotherapist
Laura Finucane FCSP, MSK Consultant MSK Physiotherapist
Chris Mercer FCSP, MSK Consultant MSK Physiotherapist

MSK First Contact Practitioner roles and the advancing practice agenda is moving at pace and as a result, there has been some anxiety around the MSK First Contact workforce. This has been expressed about several aspects of the roles, including:

  • numbers needed to ensure sustainability without wider destabilisation of the MSK workforce
  • where the workforce will come from with the requisite capability
  • concern about governance of the roles
  • who provides the supervision and support
  • a general need to understand the offer of the role to primary care
  • concern from other MSK professions that they are not included in the GP contract reimbursement scheme (DES) and where they might fit in the bigger picture.
…

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Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On

We know that musculoskeletal conditions are much more prevalent in deprived areas so the publication of this report is very relevant to addressing the social determinants of MSK health. It has been produced by the Institute of Health Equity and commissioned by the Health Foundation to mark 10 years on from the landmark study Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review).

The report highlights that:

  • people can expect to spend more of their lives in poor health
  • improvements to life expectancy have stalled, and declined for the poorest 10% of women
  • the health gap has grown between wealthy and deprived areas
  • place matters – living in a deprived area of the North East is worse for your health than living in a similarly deprived area in London, to the extent that life expectancy is nearly five years less.
…

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Postcode lotteries and transformations

by Sue Brown, ARMA CEO

February has been a month of mixed feelings for me. On the downside I continue to hear of rationing of NHS services by CCGs going against NICE guidelines. More positively I’ve been hearing about some ambitious work to transform MSK services around the country. We need some of this bold thinking if we are going to achieve ARMA’s goal of high quality, appropriate MSK services for everyone who needs them.

This month I spoke to someone in a hospital about hip and knee replacement.…

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Right on Time campaign

Versus Arthritis is campaigning to ensure that everyone who needs a joint replacement gets timely access to treatment. Hundreds of thousands of joint replacement operations take place each year. More than 90% of people who have hip and knee replacements have osteoarthritis.

At the end of February, Versus Arthritis released figures revealing that, in one year alone, almost 30,000 people with arthritis in England waited more than the guaranteed 18-weeks to start treatment. This has been featured in the Telegraph, with more coverage to follow.…

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NRAS accessing advanced therapies

Accessing Advanced Therapies (biologics, biosimilars, oral JAK inhibitors)

For some time, NRAS has been concerned that some Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have been artificially restricting access to advanced therapies (biologics, biosimilars/JAK inhibitors) and undertook a Freedom of Information request to all CCGs about this. Following discussions with NHS England on behalf of RA patients about this practice, which was felt to be unethical, NRAS is delighted to share with you news of the attached recently published statement from the NHS Regional Medicines Optimisation Committee.…

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GP contract agreement England 2020/21

The final version of the GP Contract which sets out requirements and funding for the new Primary Care Networks was published in February. Some significant changes were made in response to consultation, including one relevant to the delivery of “additional roles” which, amongst other things, will help fund the roll out of First Contact Practitioners. The two main changes are an expansion of the roles and an increase in the funding from 70% to 100% of salary. Many of the new roles are also important for MSK health.…

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