Seed funding enabled the establishment of an innovative pilot service to improve health and wellbeing of people suffering from musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, with a focus on reducing health inequalities. Funding was provided by the Health Equalities Partnership programme and the programme of work was managed by the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (the Partnership).
A service was established that created two pilot pathways to alternative and complementary therapies and activities for people suffering with MSK. To address health inequalities, the service was aimed at people potentially experiencing barriers to accessing services, such as people:
• living in deprived communities
• from an ethnic minority group
• with learning disabilities
• with severe mental illness
• on long waiting lists, for example due to Covid.
Patients selected activities or therapies according to their own interest and these were delivered by a partnership of voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in Keighley and Bradford, West Yorkshire.
The Partnership produced a first-stage evaluation report in June 2021. This provided a snapshot of the status of the pathways at the end of the funding period (March 2021). It was structured around the intended impacts and success indicators outlined in the Partnership’s application for funding. It included early indicators of outcomes for patients that showed positive benefits in terms of increased well-being and self-management.