Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how are musculoskeletal conditions being prioritised within the neighbourhood health framework.

The Neighbourhood Health Framework is designed to provide clarity and consistency to integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, and their partners, in developing and scaling neighbourhood health.

The framework outlines the national minimum aims and objectives of Neighbourhood Health Services. This includes improving health outcomes with specific focus on high-priority cohorts, including people with frailty. Whilst frailty and musculoskeletal overlap, we recognise that many people with conditions affecting their joints, bones, and muscles across their life course are not frail.

It is important that reforms are locally led, as ICBs and local authorities are best placed to design services that make sense for their local populations. Local systems can choose to go further than the minimum aims set out in the framework, and this could include musculoskeletal services.

We know there are areas where we need to go further. Delivering a Neighbourhood Health Service will be an incremental process as local understanding develops and national reforms progress.