Health services improvement
Making change happen in musculoskeletal (MSK) services
At Arthritis UK, we work to enable and support local NHS services to provide the best possible care for people with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions. We firmly support the involvement of people with lived experience in the designing of local services, and have co-produced this guide:
- Involving People with MSK Conditions in Shaping Local Services (English version, PDF, 666 KB).
- Cynnwys pobl gyda chyflyrau cyhyrysgerbydol yn y gwaith o lunio gwasanaethau lleol (Welsh version, PDF, 493 KB).
To support the guide, we ran a workshop in August 2021, welcoming colleagues and people with lived experience to join together and talk about our new guide. Listen to the recording here.
We advocate the implementation of evidence-based interventions and treatments. However, we acknowledge that this sits alongside high-quality exploratory and innovative front-line work led by brilliant people up and down the country. These efforts and experiences are well worth sharing, so others can decide if there might be potential for making similar changes in their own area. Arthritis UK is adopting an informal storytelling approach to describe attempts at improving MSK care.
These Stories of Change are from different parts of the MSK pathway, from a range of professionals across the UK. They vary in their levels of evidence, scope, scale, and methodology.
To submit your own story, email Healthservicesimprovement@arthritis-uk.org.
Stories of change
Carryduff: The impact of a holistic approach to chronic pain management
There is huge inequity facing primary care teams’ ability to participate in QI – there are barriers such as funding and capacity preventing participation. An outcome measure was to support people in reduced prescribing however it was not always the right time for people to down-titrate medication, so we tried to address the fear that medication would be stopped without a shared decision-making process. Collaborating with Arthritis UK enabled people to see the impact of a holistic approach to chronic pain management rather than fear deprescribing.
How might we enable people to find support outside of the clinical world?
- Moving forward with Fibromyalgia in greater Glasgow and Clyde (PDF, 225 KB).
- Spreading ESCAPE-pain across West Wales (PDF, 257 KB).
- Reducing opioid prescriptions in Gateshead (PDF, 218 KB).
How might we help join services together?
- Supporting people experiencing chronic pain in A&E and hospitals to get the help they need from community services in Camden (PDF, 254 KB).
- Integrating services to provide better care for patients in North Tees and Hartlepool (PDF, 225 KB).
- Implementing volunteer led group pain management courses at Clough GP surgery (PDF, 263 KB).
How might we involve people with lived experience to shape local healthcare?
- Developing a community of practice in physiotherapy across Staffordshire (PDF, 219 KB).
- A power shift at pain clinics in Bristol (PDF, 251 KB).
- Partnering with patients at Ulster University (PDF, 263 KB).
How might we tackle waiting lists, and support people whilst they wait?
- Trialling a mega-clinic to connect with people waiting for non-urgent rheumatology appointments in Belfast (PDF, 368 KB).
- Group education sessions giving Options, Advice, Knowledge (OAK) for people with osteoarthritis of the knee across Gwent (PDF, 271 KB).
- A new approach to supporting people with arthritis in NHS Forth Valley through better information, advice and exercise (PDF, 288 KB).
- Worthwhile waiting in Cambridgeshire (PDF, 249 KB).
In 2022, we added some new stories
How might we provide better care in new ways?
- ZOOMPHYSIO – Digital First in Derbyshire (PDF, 504 KB).
- Supporting patients to make personalised decisions about their care - Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust (PDF, 263 KB).
- The Waiting Rheum project: supporting self management in Belfast (PDF, 208 KB)
- Medical students hear from people with chronic pain - Queen's university (PDF, 240 KB)
Cascading information like this increases the opportunity for it to be ‘taken up’ by somebody and repeated which can only lead to better care for people like me.
These stories are inspiring but also outline the challenges which clearly can be real barriers to change
Read a catalogue which collates all of the stories below:
Sharing stories to improve services in musculoskeletal care (PDF, 2 MB).