In 2023, ARMA (Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance) carried out the first ever national inquiry into MSK health inequalities to explore and highlight the issues and make recommendations for improvement.
They gathered written and oral evidence from MSK services that were undertaking work to address these inequalities, including us, and the inquiry resulted in the Act Now report on MSK inequalities being produced.
We are committed to taking action to reduce health inequalities and disparities, and are proud to have been acknowledged as a pioneer in this space.
In November 2022, we co-delivered our National Study Day with ARMA that resulted in all services developing a ‘Local Health Inequalities Action Plan’.
This commitment has been reaffirmed in our clinical strategy where there is a focus on delivering these plans and undertaking a Board Assurance exercise.
In April, ARMA held a Parliamentary launch for the Act Now report at the House of Commons. Nick Livadas (clinical delivery lead) and Hal Brace (operations manager) were invited to attend as contributors to the report, along with many other members, contributors and leaders in MSK.
Nick said:
We were invited to attend the launch event after we submitted our local action plan to the inquiry and several of our examples were used in the final report. This included our findings around under representation of men, people from deprived areas and people from ethnic minority groups attending our South Tyneside service.
It was an honour to be invited along to the launch and really see and feel the commitment across the breadth of MSK health to tackle inequalities together. ARMA was grateful for our input into the report and encouraged all members to ‘act now’ to create change.
A big well done to our South Tyneside service and all our other services for the excellent work they are carrying out to tackle health inequalities.