CEO update by Sue Brown
One of the things I love about my job is the variety of things I get involved in. The wide scope of what is covered by musculoskeletal health and the variety of ARMA members, partners and stakeholders means no two days are ever the same. August has been a month to prepare for the exciting variety of activity we have planned including our annual lecture, a roundtable on pain, an event on physical activity and more webinars.
Physical activity has been quite a theme this month, with the launch of the We Are Undefeatable campaign. I love the positive but realistic messaging which is so relevant to MSK conditions. This will help reinforce the messages from clinicians using Moving Medicine or the RCGP Active Practice Charter. My concern is that when people turn up at their chosen activity, be it a local leisure centre, gym or walking group, staff/volunteers won’t understand MSK and will be concerned about them taking part. This is the reason ARMA supports the parkrun Facebook group for people with MSK conditions, as it gives peer support and encouragement for people to be active in a way that works for them.
ARMA is planning an event for providers of mainstream activities to help them understand how to support people with MSK conditions to be active, and to include them in their activities. The emphasis of We Are Undefeatable is on self-management and being more active without medical supervision or special programmes, just like the parkrun initiative. I hope that we can help those motivated by the campaign to get a positive response wherever they choose to go.
The other big theme of my August has been pain. ARMA collaborated on some qualitative research around chronic pain which I presented at a Chronic Pain Policy Coalition event. It is clear that chronic pain is extremely common. It’s not all MSK related, but at lot of it is. The lack of services for chronic pain leaves patients and healthcare professionals alike struggling to know what to do for the best. That’s why we are promoting IAPT-MSK pain in a webinar later this month. It’s why we are holding a roundtable in October to look at how the situation can be improved. Look out for more from us in the coming months on this.
One thing that pain and physical activity have in common is complexity. There are a whole variety of barriers to people with MSK conditions being active and effective multidisciplinary pain services need to be available at every level from community peer support to specialist services. No one can solve either of these issues alone. Work together – then we might stand a chance.