Laura Finucane, our Clinical Director at Sussex MSK Partnership Central, is also President of The International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Therapists (IFOMPT).

This year the International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) – the world conference of musculoskeletal and manual physical therapy, celebrates its 50th year as a global leader in Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapy (OMPT) excellence. The event welcomes experts from all over the world to its conference in Switzerland to explore:

1. Innovative models of care in musculoskeletal and manual physical therapy
2. Physical therapy futures – emerging areas
3. Expertise in musculoskeletal and manual physical therapy

“Sharing ideas and initiatives among colleagues and experts is crucial for developing excellence and helps pave the way for reducing musculoskeletal disorders globally – and enables people to bring new ideas into their local services.

 

This is my fourth and final year as president, and the 50th anniversary of IFOMPT, and I am excited about the discussion and debates and learning about the initiatives taking place around the world and turning those ideas into practice.” ~ Laura Finucane president of IFOMPT and Clinical Director for Sussex MSK Partnership.

Laura has been involved with IFOMPT for the last 18 years, serving on the executive committee for the last 12 years and president from 2020-2024.

Also attending from Sussex MSK Partnership Central are Andrew Kemp and Stephanie Hemmings.

Andrew is an Advanced Practitioner and Stephanie is a research and Audit Lead, Senior MSK Physiotherapist and Lecturer in Physiotherapy at University of Brighton.

They will be presenting a poster titled “Equity factors in trials of physiotherapy for meniscus tear: A systematic review”​  and Stephanie will also be presenting on our nationally celebrated Community Appointment Days (CADs).

The International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists Incorporated represents groups of Manipulative and Manual Physical Therapists around the world who have completed stringent post-registration/post-graduation specialisation programmes in the field of neuro-musculoskeletal disorders.

Last Monday, colleagues from Sussex MSK Partnership Central supported University Hospital Sussex to see 240 people at their own Community Appointment Day (CAD).

Held at the Sports Centre at University Of Sussex in Falmer, the CAD supported people from Brighton through strengths- based What Matters to You conversations, and tailored advice, guidance, and rehabilitation depending on their individual needs.

Community providers were also on hand to offer additional support and to connect people on a wider basis with their health and wellbeing. Including SCFT Living Well Programme, Freedom Leisure, Aging Well, MIND, Together Co Social Prescribing, Brighton and Hove City Council and Sussex Integrated Care Board.

The feedback from those who attended was hugely positive and it was great to support people in the community.

“It was so wonderful to be listened to. Everyone was so kind. Please thank everyone as I now understand more about my condition and can be proactive in my recovery.” – Feedback from attendee

Look out for further CAD updates over the coming months.

The Brighton and Hove Memory Assessment Service (MAS) supports people before, during and after diagnosis.

At the beginning of 2020 we spoke to Elspeth, one of our service users, about the events that led to her Alzheimer’s diagnosis and she explains in her own words how much joy she now gets from life.

“You see, I’m okay at talking but I can’t do things. I can’t write, I can’t spell anymore.”

“I started to have disasters, in my in my flat, I was just turning on the bath water and leaving it, and I used to flood the floor. I had terrible disasters with my cooking – I nearly burnt the building down – and it was absolutely terrifying. And I thought this isn’t normal loss of memory. This is quite serious loss of memory. So I just sort of realized then that I think I probably might have Alzheimer’s.

“When I said, ‘I’m forgetting things, all sorts of little things’, they would say, ‘don’t be silly, we all do that’. They dismissed it.

Elspeth: Am I right to tell you all this?
Here: Yes, please do!

“Well I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to the doctors and I’m going to say I’m forgetting everything’.

“And (the doctor) said, ‘would you like to go and have a little test?’ It’s like a little, ‘what does this remind you of, and will you draw something’ – and I didn’t do terribly well. Then she said, ‘we could offer you a scan’ and I said, ‘yes, please give me a scan’ – because I have to know.

“What was my reaction to getting the news? It was almost relief, because there’s a reason for my behavior. I never once had a fit about it and thought ‘Oh, my God’. I thought, well, it is what it is.”

Everything seems so lovely to me now

“I’m really, really happy. It’s one of the nicest times of my life with all the struggle and stuff I’ve had. I’m not a sort of miserable person.

“I’m more aware of nature. I just bought a pound bunch of daffodils and they’ve all opened out in my lounge, and I can’t think of anything more beautiful to see in the morning when you wake up, the simple things.

“I said to Penelope the other day, ‘this must just be like when you’ve taken LSD!’ And she said, ‘My God, I hope you don’t really know what that’s like!’ She nearly collapsed when I said that!

“Everything seems so lovely to me now. Everything is there, but you have to know how to join the club first. Some will just go off and say, ‘no, I don’t want to do that’ or ‘I don’t want to go’. And that’s such a shame if I don’t try it, isn’t it?”

What has made the difference to you?

“Just me appreciating life. Because I’m not going to have it much longer anyway at my age, and I just want to cherish every day.”

Speaking at TedX Brighton is an experience that is difficult to put into words. The whole process is magical. From the thrill of being selected as a speaker, to the connection with other speakers, working on our talks and then the big moment of stepping onto the red dot.

Putting together a TedX talk is a process of really exploring a subject and weaving in stories to make it resonate with people. We worked over several months on our talks to create them. Each time weaving in more stories to make the message more powerful.

The message needs to resonate with people, and speak to people no matter who they are. And I knew the Here team were in the audience, so they were in my mind as I talked.

Photograph: Jenny Handy

Here’s a summary of what I talked about:

We need to value difference more

Who do we listen to and believe? Which side of a story? And do we look for the other side of that story to understand it? Or are we all stuck inside our own heads, our own lives, and our own experiences?

What gets valued is ‘sameness’ over difference. Who looks most like most of the leaders we see around us. Who decides what books we read, what films we get to watch and who gets listened to? The past is glorified with one lens only. So we are told the things that people want us to believe. That great things happened and the leaders were great, but if we look closer there are stories there that we do not hear.

There is always another side to a story

When we make judgements on other people, we do that from our own perspective. We need to consider that we each have our own story, experience and version of things. None of us are perfect, we all judge other people and we all have things to learn about our own behaviour and biases.

If we don’t think about those things, there’s a huge risk. The world faces huge problems, so we need to make sure we listen to other people without judging and pay attention to the other side of stories. Otherwise, we risk making decisions without considering how they impact different people.

How do you react if you meet someone with a different opinion to you? How do you respond? And are you trying to persuade people you are right and they are wrong? Or are you listening to what they have to say? What is their side of the story, and how can you have conversations where you might disagree on something.

Photograph: Jenny Handy

How can we value our differences more?

We can learn to value and appreciate people with different opinions to ours if we try. We need to learn how to cross and reach out to another side of a story and make sure we are really listening. We know it will take time, it won’t be easy and this is all a journey that we are all going on to reach a place of understanding.

We need to learn how to listen to each other, how to communicate with each other, and how to understand that it’s OK to disagree and not hate each other. Look for the learning opportunity. Try having different conversations with people and see if you can reach a place of understanding others.

When we deliver our exceptional care, or when we talk to each other to understand each other more, what can we do about understanding each other’s perspectives better?

And if we can do that, maybe we can understand the truth, value and power in our differences.

Thank you so much TedX Brighton, for a totally unforgettable experience. See you next time for more talks and ideas worth spreading on the red dot.

We’re really proud of our colleagues and the amazing work they do for our communities and healthcare.  These stories are from the people that work at Here, who work so hard everyday to provide exceptional care, for everyone.

This week we’re spotlighting Enam, our SMSKP Project Coordinator. Enam has been working for Here since March 2022.

Why did you choose to work in MSK?

I was working in the Vax team, and I was approached by a colleague to apply for the role. The role interested me as the work seemed interesting and exciting. Considering the skills I learned from being in the vax team I was intrigued to see if I could rise to the challenge of MSK.

Describe what you do in 100 words.

A project is initially discussed within MSK Leads. Our Manager, Andy Henderson, then meets us to discuss and allocate an agreed project. Projects have the definition of being strategically important to the MSK service such as where we can improve / create a patient service or system and for Here itself such as improving the office space for staff (but these projects are rare).

Once a project is allocated it is up to the project coordinator to drive, implement and deliver the project within its set deadline. We also handle the aftermath of the project, such as reviews and reporting.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

The variety, no two projects are the same. I am a keen learner and always looking to improve my knowledge of MSK and project management. The team around me is great, our project team is actually split on to two with Development and Improvement, working alongside them is great.

Seeing a project completed and being implemented into the service has its sense of pride knowing the team put a lot of effort and time in to it.

What would you say to someone thinking about a career in MSK?

Do not be afraid of not knowing. The organisation is great and provides training and learnings. You can always ask for support. MSK is a huge service. From an admin / operations perspective there are plenty of opportunities to develop.

How would you describe the MSK in one word?

Dynamic

It feels like we blinked – and March was done. It was a busy month and with a lot of hard but exciting work happening all across the organisation. Here’s just a little of what happened to keep you up to date…

• Our Impact Report for 2023 – 2024 launched where we celebrated the work we have been doing, the difference we have made and milestones we have reached – Here Annual report 2023 (hereweare.org.uk)

• Our AGM – We came together to talk about what has been important to us this year, what has made a difference and where would we like to go. We focused on our purpose and what single change would help us better meet our purpose. It made us think, we had some laughs (and cake!) and looking forward to next year!
• PLM Live 2024 – This year saw another successful event at County Hall with the theme of Mental Health and Trauma. Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Dr Ayan Panja welcomed keynote speaker – renowned addiction expert, speaker author Dr. Gabor Maté sought after for his expertise on trauma, addiction, stress and childhood development.

• We published our first sustainability blog – Sustainability goals: Reduced inequalities
• Helen set out in her latest blog how we work to offer exceptional care, for everyone: Creating long term health: 4 ingredients for a different approach.
• Staff Survey – this year we had the highest number of people take part in our annual survey! These were some of the top results:

We do Data and Business Intelligence (BI) well. Award winningly well in fact – but we don’t want to keep our knowledge to ourselves!

Over the years we have supported other healthcare providers on their journey, as well as our own services – we now want to expand our impact by partnering with more organisations to improve their Data and BI.

We are looking to talk to healthcare organisations, non-profits and CICs who:

• Are considering or planning their data and BI approach as a business need and have not fully embraced or realised good capability in this area.
• Are looking to mobilise or create a new clinical service enabled by the right data, analytics, and reporting.
• Are looking to improve or transform an existing clinical service or services, enabled by the right data, analytics, and reporting.

This market research will involve a 1-hour interview with our external researchers. Ideally, we would be interested in interviewing those who are responsible for this work, or who oversee the strategy for your digital and data.

As a thank you to those organisations who are happy to participate, the Here Data and BI team would be very happy to offer an advisory hour on your Data and BI approach.

If you’re interested – we would love to hear from you!

Please contact matthew.riley@nhs.net for more in information.

Know someone else who would like to help? Share this blog with anyone you think might be interested.

You can also learn more about how our Data and Analytics helps us to provide exceptional care in our latest Impact Report.

As a social enterprise our purpose is to create exceptional care, for everyone. We are incredibly proud of the services we deliver, and sharing our learning is an important part of our culture.

Many businesses talk about growth, for us, we measure that in terms of impact, as well as delivery.

That’s why we were so excited about our New Local webinar this morning, talking about our Community Appointment Day innovations in Sussex.

Today over 270 people were on the call, with the wonderful Natalie Blunt and Laura Finucane talking about how they got the CAD up and running, and what impact it had.

Whilst we are still tracking our data, and learning what works, what I’m left with this morning is the incredible news that across the country, CADs are popping up like mushrooms.

What started as a ‘what if’ conversation in our teams, is becoming an accepted idea – fuelled by a desire to experiment, to try something different, knowing that doing what we’ve always done will not solve the problems we face.

Its not just in MSK, and its not about waiting lists. Creating new ways to deliver truly personalised care is an idea our systems are ready for. Common sense innovation, that anyone can read about and think – how might we do that around here?

As a social enterprise, this is what we are about. Business for good. We’re excited to connect with others who are exploring this idea. We’re happy to share, and importantly we’ll learn from how this idea develops in other places.

Creating exceptional care for everyone is going to take change on a new scale. Strength based, community powered health.

Whether you’re daunted, deliberating or determined to try, we’d love to be connected.

Our Impact Report 2023-2024 is now up on our website, showing the impact we have and showcasing some of the great work we’ve been so proud of this year!

Here’s Impact Report 2023-2024

In our report you’ll find out about how our Health Builders are a vital part of our unique person-centred approach, celebrate 10 incredible years of MSK transformation with us, learn about how our equality dashboards are helping us to find those who are not accessing health services and how we’re using the data they collect to co-create services that are better suited and accessible, for everyone.

We would love you to hear your thoughts and feedback and please feel free to share with anyone else you might think would like to find out more about us. 

If you’re interested in working with us, or finding out more about our projects, partnerships and opportunities, please do get in touch. We love to connect, share best practice and explore collaborations.

here.innovation@nhs.net

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 global goals adopted by all United Nations Member States. They are designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”.

Every few weeks we will share Here’s progress on one of these goals. In February we were focused on Goal 10 Reduced Inequalities.

What else have we done to reduce inequalities? 

Whilst we are an equal opportunities employer, there are many things that we do to ensure that we carry this forward in how we work.

Reducing inequalities for our employees:

• We are committed to being a Real Living Wage employer, implementing the last two annual increases within 4 weeks of being announced. In FY2022-23, this increased the pay immediately of 12 employees, and in FY2023-24 it impacted 23 employees.
• We have embedded into policy an annual inflationary pay uplift for all employees.
• We are piloting the concept of pay and terms transparency at board level and for two further teams.
• We report annually on our gender pay gap statistics as can be seen on our website here. Our Emerging Leaders Learning Circle discussed what we learnt from this report.
• Seven of our nine board members are female, against a trend in the UK of only 40% of board members being female.
• We offer flexible working arrangements to allow us to employ people with varied life commitments. At the end of 2023, 51% of our employees worked part-time, including casual contractors.
• Our Employee Assistance Programme offers a free 24/7 service to allow all employees to access anonymous guidance on a range of issues including financial management, counselling and legal issues.
• This year we started offering free period products in our toilets.
• Our Equality and Diversity mandatory training session for all employees has 91% compliance currently.

Reducing inequalities for our patients:

• We have been hosting MSK Community Appointment Days (CAD) in community hubs to make our MSK services more accessible to communities.
• First Contact Physiotherapists based in GP surgeries, bringing them closer to patients for their convenience.
• Ensuring that access to our pathways is available in both digital and non-digital methods so that the service is available to all.
• We highlight any safeguarding risks in the delivery of services.
• Ensuring access to healthcare via non-digital pathways as well as digital.
• Pioneering production of health equity data with respect to access to and outcomes within our services.
• Diversifying access into MSK services ensuring inclusion across the board, for example, via self-referral electronic and soon to be launched telephone referral. We have also introduced self-booking for patients.
• Our MSK service offers the translation of outcome letters for patients.
• Utilising translation and interpreter services wherever needed in our services to ensure that patients access and receive the most from our services.
• Additional Primary Care offer phone of face-to-face appointments for equity of access.

Our physios treating patients at a Community Appointment Day (CAD)

Reducing inequality for our wider community:

• In January we radically changed our recruitment process to reach candidates from all backgrounds and to ensure a fair and unbiased selection process using the recruitment platform Teamtailor.
• MSK Big Conversation public events to connect with and better serve population especially in the most deprived areas. These events help us to co-produce events and our services through ongoing discussion and feedback with our communities.
• We work with Brighton Women’s Centre via our MSK contract.
• Offering vegan lunches at Big Conversations and other external events.
• Menopause education to businesses via our Menopause at Work service.
• We offer women-only physio gym classes under our MSK services following patient feedback.
• We run Stroke Peer Support Groups (PSGs) to help and support stroke survivors, carers & family cope with life after stroke. The PSGs are useful to survivors’ recovery and give hope, hearing others talk, sharing and learning from other’s experiences through social interaction in easily accessible community and hospital settings.
• Conscious work stream to underscore our commitment to identify and eradicate Modern Slavery including training for clinicians to help identify potential victims (more likely to be women). Compliance is at 97% completion.
• Here took part in Brighton Pride in 2023 and plan to continue to do so every year, our banners highlighted the disparity in health care equity in the LGBTQ+ community.
• We hold health population data analysis for the MSK East service and several local GP surgeries.

What do we plan to do? 

• We are exploring a women’s health policy covering how we can help women manage their health at work.
• Our landlord is exploring with us whether we can install a gender-neutral toilet,we invited employees to join the working group.
• As well as reporting on the gender pay gap, we are exploring whether we have sufficient data to report on ethnicity pay gap reporting and explore whether there are inequalities that we need to address.

Suppliers we support who are doing good:

• Infinity Foods Wholesale is a local company that we purchase many of our refreshments from, as well as being a local co-operative, they have been supporting two projects that help redistribute unsaleable foods.
• Local foodbank Phoenix Food Hub and Whitehawk Community Food Project. More info here.

Two local charities to highlight to everyone that are doing great things in this area are:

Brighton & Hove Albion Foundation: mentoring young people, diversionary activity, tackling discrimination, disability awareness. Link here.

Brighton Women’s Centre: To empower women and children to improve their life chances and lead independent lives by reducing inequalities through the provision of holistic and integrated services. Link here.

What can else can we all do to help reduce inequalities?

Raise your voice against any type of discrimination. Everyone is equal regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, social background and physical abilities.

Register to vote and make sure your voice is heard, particular as an election is likely this year. One of the issues contributing to rising inequalities is caused by the lack of representation of minorities and underprivileged groups in government. It is important to raise diverse engagement and representation in institutions of power.

Gather or donate the appliances, food, clothes needed for a local charity who supports migrants, shelters and other minority community groups.

Try to be aware of ethical purchasing including Fair Trade products. Sometimes these can more expensive, but not always so it’s worth exploring the options.

The Sustainability Team