Tag: public health

A spending review for wellbeing? An idea whose time has come

Guest blog by Dr Jeanelle de Gruchy, President of the Association of Directors of Public Health

To its great credit, New Zealand has become the first country in the world to produce a “wellbeing budget” – a commitment to prioritise population wellbeing as the main mission of the government. A similar philosophy was adopted in Wales in 2015, with the Well-being of Future Generations Act requiring public bodies to think about the long-term impact of their policies on both people and places.…

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iO’s Osteopathy For Health

Harnessing the power of social media to promote public health

The Institute of Osteopathy (iO) has launched a new community Facebook page ‘Osteopathy for Health’ with the aim to provide the public with useful health advice and tips to support positive lifestyle behaviours.

The iO first launched ‘Osteopathy for Health’ as web-based information, supported by a series of advice leaflets that could be distributed by osteopaths and other healthcare practitioners. The project has now evolved to utilise the power of social media to spread health and lifestyle messages on exercise, diet, getting older, sleep, and mental health on a dedicated Facebook page ‘Osteopathy for Health’.…

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Musculoskeletal conditions on the national public health agenda

governemnt logoFor the first time since Public Health England (PHE) came into being, musculoskeletal conditions have been mentioned in the Government’s remit letter to PHE. PHE is the national body with responsibility for the nation’s health and wellbeing and tackling health inequalities. Each year the Government sends them a set of instructions about their priorities. In 2019/20 this specifically includes ‘work-focused musculoskeletal prevention activity’.

In 2018, PHE made musculoskeletal conditions one of its priority programmes, and so it’s great that these conditions are now taking their place on the national agenda.…

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CEO update – Prevention: putting MSK centre stage

Prevention seems to have been the theme of my February. The possibility that a lot of the pain and disability of MSK conditions might be prevented, and that this is being taken seriously is an exciting prospect. Even where the conditions can’t be prevented, good self-management support can make a big difference to the impact of the condition. The Government is clear that the future sustainability of the NHS depends on prevention, and that it wants to improve healthy life expectancy by at least five extra years, by 2035.…

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GP contract reform

Since the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) was published on 7 January 2019 a new document, Investment and evolution: A five-year framework for GP contract reform to implement The NHS Long Term Plan, has been released which includes the roll out of the Primary Care Networks model. Here’s a summary of the relevant MSK elements.

The publication covers the following areas:

  • Addressing the workforce shortfall
  • Solving Indemnity Costs
  • Improving the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF)
  • Introducing the Network Contract DES
  • Going ‘digital-first’ and improving access
  • Delivering new network services
  • Guaranteeing investment
  • Supporting research and testing future contract changes
  • Schedule of future contract changes and development work

Workforce

Workforce is identified as the priority for primary care.…

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Universal Personalised Care – a summary

Since the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) was published on 7 January 2019, the Universal Personalised Care: Implementing the Comprehensive Model has been published.

The document defines personalised care: people have choice and control over the way their care is planned and delivered based on ‘what matters’ to them and their individual strengths, needs and preferences.

There are six components to the model:

  1. Shared decision making
  2. Personalised care and support planning
  3. Enabling choice, including legal rights to choice
  4. Social prescribing and community-based support
  5. Supported self-management
  6. Personal health budgets and integrated personal budgets.
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Rising up the agenda

Musculoskeletal conditions are common – we all know that. But it hadn’t struck me until recently just how common compared to other long term conditions. 17 million people in the UK have an MSK condition. Compare that with the 850,000 with dementia and think about how much we talk about dementia. It’s a similar picture for other conditions: diabetes, 3.5 million people, cardiovascular, 7 million. Only mental health exceeds the prevalence of MSK conditions.

Of course, we are rightly worried about dementia.…

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Are we serious about reducing health inequalities?

Guest blog by Ms. Nuzhat Ali, National MSK Lead, Public Health England

Health inequalities are avoidable, unjust differences in people’s health that are persistent and difficult to shift, until and unless we actively focus on them as a society and a whole system.

People living in the most deprived areas in England can expect to spend nearly 20 fewer years in good health compared with those in the least deprived areas. The trajectory and the scale of the inequity worry me for at least three reasons – it is:

  • A societal injustice, one that has serious consequences for us all in many ways
  • A factor in slowing down life expectancy and healthy life expectancy
  • Increasing demand for health care which equates to increasing costs

Health is dependent on so much more than healthcare.  …

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