Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan for England on 3 July, what additional strategies or actions they plan to take to combat musculoskeletal conditions.

The 10-Year Health Plan will support people with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions to better manage their condition and access services and support through the three shifts: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention. For example, the shift from hospital to community will enable people with MSK to access a range of additional services to support the management of their condition and treatment closer to home.

In line with this shift, the Government has funded NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme to deploy their proven Further Faster model for MSK community services.

The programme has been designed to reduce waiting times for community MSK appointments and to enhance access to quality treatment, working with integrated care board leaders to improve data and metrics and referral pathways to wider support services.

We are working together to further develop the approach to better enable integrated care systems to commission the delivery of high quality MSK services in the community, which will benefit patients now and into the future.