Sport and Exercise Medicine and its Relevance to Work, Health and Disability
The Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) UK submitted a response to the Work, Health and Disability Consultation focused on the specialty’s ability to provide service delivery in MSK Medicine. Key points from the response included:
- Sport and Exercise Medicine has the skills and knowledge to lead clinical vocational multi-disciplinary teams which can improve health and employment outcomes in the community.
- Early assessment for musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions is key, via a community-based Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM) team who can provide functional analysis of limitations and abilities and decide on the optimal care pathway, in order to meet health and employment needs.
- NHS Commissioners need to see exemplar service-delivery models drawn from existing instances of best practice, this exists within Sport and Exercise Medicine MSK models of care.
- Graduated return-to-work (GroW) programmes are effective. Learning can be taken from sport and team medical care where a prescriptive period of appropriate goal-based rehab and a graduated return to performance/work is already being used.
Read FSEM’s full response here.