This page provides links to GIRFT specialties and projects within which strands of their work focus on musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions and pathways.

The NHS Long Term plan, published in 2019, identified MSK conditions as one of the key long term conditions responsible for a substantial amount of poor health in the population. Since 2019, ‘MSK problems’ have continued to be among the top three reasons for sickness absence in the UK, and in 2022 this equated to 19.5 million work days. (ONS 2022)

The GIRFT programme has more than 50 workstreams reviewing clinical specialties. Of these, nine involve a focus on MSK conditions (see box below).

GIRFT clinical leads working within GIRFT’s MSK portfolio include:

• Professor Tim Briggs: GIRFT Chair, orthopaedic surgery clinical lead and SRO for MSK
• Mike Hutton: spinal services clinical lead
• Bob Handley: adult orthopaedic trauma surgery clinical lead
• James Hunter: paediatric trauma and orthopaedic surgery clinical lead
• Lesley Kay and Peter Lanyon: rheumatology joint clinical leads. (Lesley Kay is also NHS England’s National Clinical Director for MSK.)
• Flora McErlane and Gavin Cleary: paediatric rheumatology joint clinical lead
• Andrew Bennett: community MSK clinical lead
• Andy Saunders: community MSK clinical advisor for First Contact Practice
• Helen Makins: chronic pain clinical lead
• Jacqui Clinch: chronic pain (CPY) clinical advisor
• Graham Syers: chronic pain clinical advisor