Health Policy | ARMA

Guest Blog: MSK Clinical Network Project

by Sarah Marsh, National Policy Lead, Long Term Conditions, NHS England

As we begin the new financial year and our plans for the upcoming months become more structured, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share my thoughts on the challenges heading our way; as well as a chance to share our ideas and reinforce our bid for your support as we further the momentum of all the work streams, including the MSK Knowledge Network Programme.

My aim for this coming year is to continue to support our programme strategies whilst reinforcing the links established with other MSK work ongoing within NHS England and our partner organisations: Department of Health, Public Health England and Health Education England.…

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Guest Blog: Implementing the national clinical audit recommendations

by Ali Rivett, Director of Clinical Affairs, BSR

The first annual report was published in January and revealed wide variation in care across England and Wales. This is consistent with how other national audits have reported in their first year and we expect to identify where improvements have been made following the analysis for the 2^nd cohort.

To date, we have disseminated the report to all participating trusts, health boards and commissioning groups and will be presenting further analysis at the BSR annual conference in April.…

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Preventing musculoskeletal disorders has wider impacts for public health

From the Public Health Matters blog, Public Health England
Kevin Fenton, 11 January 2016 — Health and Wellbeing

Life expectancy in England has risen by more than five years in the past two decades, yet for many people, a longer life will involve more years spent in ill-health.

Earlier this year, The Global Burden of Disease project – an international study ranking the diseases and risk factors that cause death and disability – highlighted the toll that musculoskeletal conditions are taking on people’s health.…

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Guest Blog: An Opportunity for Joint Action

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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HSJ Investigation: ‘Unwarranted and unfair’ disparity in elective surgery revealed

Wide variations in elective surgery rates among the most affluent and deprived areas in England raise serious questions about the use of NHS resources, a leading public health expert has warned.

1 October, 2015 | By Lawrence Dunhill, Health Service Journal.

HSJ investigation finds huge disparities in rates for elective surgery in affluent and deprived populations
Experts warn the variance raises serious questions about use of NHS resources
Disparity in elective surgery commissioning

HSJ’s investigation, which examined the rates for elective surgery funded by the clinical commissioning groups covering the 10 most affluent and 10 most deprived populations in the country, has revealed huge disparities.…

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Guest Blog: Getting it Right First Time

by Mike Kimmons CB, Chief Executive, British Orthopaedic Association

On Monday 16 March, the BOA launched the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) report. GIRFT was commissioned in 2013 by the Secretary of State for Health and NHS England and published with their agreement. Evidence-based and solutions-oriented, the GIRFT team used multiple sources to compile a unique data set for each NHS Hospital Trust in England that provides elective orthopaedic services and constructed comparative performance dashboards with the objective of benchmarking good practice.

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Guest Blog: The Need for Competency-Based Commissioning

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.

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Guest Blog: Musings from Primary Care

by Dr. Alan Nye, President Primary Care Rheumatology Society, Executive Director, Pennine MSK Partnership Ltd.

This is my final month as President of the Primary Care Rheumatology Society and it’s been a very interesting 2 years for me. I apologise that this blog is England-centric, but England is the totality of my NHS experience and I cannot write about areas outside of my experience. I would like to cover, albeit briefly, three areas that over the past few years have become very dear to my heart:

MSK training for primary care
MSK networks and commissioning MSK services
Shared decision-making

For a long time the lack of training for front line GPs has been a real issue for the NHS.…

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Guest Blog – Collaboration and Genuine Innovation

by Maurice Cheng, Chief Executive of The Institute of Osteopathy I’m sitting here on a Sunday morning writing this blog post, having missed the deadline, wondering what I could reflect on that would be interesting for ARMA colleagues. The reason I’m late with this is because we’ve just relaunched the British Osteopathic Association as the Institute of Osteopathy; finally got our phase one new website and branding up this week (dead links, typos and all); finalised our annual convention programme in October and embedded it on an event microsite; published a new format members’ journal; and signed off on an extraordinarily long career and lifestyle census questionnaire for osteopathic practitioners – all in the same week.…

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Guest Blog – On being a bit short for your weight

by Judi Rhys, Chief Executive of Arthritis Care I recently attended a plenary session at the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology Congress. The presentations were concerned with the ‘global musculoskeletal challenge’ and the ‘imminent avalanche of demand’ ahead. Many of the speakers referred to the rise in worldwide obesity and the link between obesity and osteoarthritis. A review of research in this area suggests an obese person is 14 times more likely to develop knee osteoarthritis, compared with a person of normal weight.…

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