CEO update – February 2017
Dear All,
This is my last update as CEO of ARMA. On Monday, 13th of February 2017, I will start my new role as CEO of the Resuscitation Council, and Sue Brown will take up the post of CEO of ARMA. Sue has worked for many years as Head of Public Policy for Sense and previously for Mind, as well as being Vice-Chair of the Care and Support Alliance. I know that Sue is keen to meet as many of you as possible within her first month, and I’m sure that you will all welcome her warmly to the role.
We are living in uncertain and challenging times. If on one hand the only constant is change, what we are living through now – be it in the NHS, in the UK, in Europe, across the world – feels more like an earthquake.
We are always, however, faced with a choice, particularly in times of adversity. We can choose to look inwards, clutch at what we’ve got, and decide to go it alone, regarding those closest to us not as partners but competitors. Or we can choose to look outwards, pool our resources, and collaborate with those who we recognise as having much in common with us. Inevitably, those that pursue the former path use the language of the latter. But we are all judged by our actions.
Oscar Wilde wrote that “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” While we are not necessarily in the gutter, we – as the MSK community – are certainly all in the same boat.
ARMA is unique in bringing together organisations large and small, patient-led and professional bodies, specialists and generalists operating across the entire healthcare arena, charities focusing on single conditions and those working across the MSK spectrum. That is a challenge, but when we are united, we are more than the sum of our parts.
At the first members’ meeting which I attended as CEO, back in June 2012, I said to our members that ARMA belongs to you, and that our Alliance will be what you want it to be, but that a strong ARMA will benefit everyone. How strong we are depends on how effectively we all pull in the same direction.
Collaboration is the shared destiny of our community, of healthcare, of our society, and of nations. The only question is how long, and how painful, it will be to get there, and how many obstacles and setbacks must be overcome. But even that is largely in our own hands. Strong, self-confident organisations, and peoples, need not fear losing their identity through collaboration. We win, and we lose, together. If success cannot be shared, it will be short-lived, and ultimately it will be in vain.
The 8 years that I have worked in MSK – nearly 5 of these with ARMA – have been very eventful, and they have taught me much. I’m very pleased to have known and worked with so many good people, some of whom I would like to thank in particular.
Dave Marsh, Phil Gray and Tony Woolf – three very different ARMA Chairs, each very committed to achieving the very best for our Alliance, each of whom it has been a pleasure to work with.
Peter Kay, whose constant support and championing not just of MSK but of ARMA has been instrumental in getting to where we are now.
Alan Nye, who has been a key point of reference for me since before joining ARMA.
Debbie Cook, who has shown great commitment to the ARMA way of working at every step of the way, as well as great integrity and support for me personally.
There are many more people whom I have greatly enjoyed working with: Jeremy Taylor, Jane Dunnage, Steve Bevan, Tony Redmond and Sir Muir Gray among them.
There have of course also been a few stumbling blocks along the way. It is unfortunate, in this respect, that throughout my nearly 5 years as CEO of ARMA, and stretching back further, by far the biggest challenges to our Alliance, and our community, have come not from outside but from within our community.
Although we are not alone in this, how much more effective could we have been, had we not had to work through problems of our own making?
Now more than ever, it is important that this Alliance can genuinely work as one, and speak as one. With its members actively supporting it, ARMA can open the door for the whole MSK community – and then everyone can go through. But the door can only be opened by our collective strength. Just as in the story of the blind men and the elephant, there is no point describing just one part of the picture, if you can’t see the whole.
Before I conclude this last update, I should probably say a few words about what ARMA has in fact been doing since the end of November.
The government’s Improving Lives green paper on health, work and disability is one of our key priorities at this time, and Nita has been liaising closely with our member organisations around key messages on MSK. We will be producing an ARMA response to the consultation, which closes on the 17th of February, based on our members’ input, and building on the policy position paper on MSK and work which we produced last year. We also hosted a number of webinars on this issue in the past few months, which are available both on our homepage and our Yammer group, and which we encourage everyone to have a look at if you haven’t already.
As previously mentioned, we continue to work closely with NHS England to deliver a series of regional MSK workshops across England. Three workshops will take place in March, in Birmingham (21 March), Leeds (24 March) and London (28 March), co-produced with MSK leaders from local CCGs and AHSNs and the respective Regional Medical Directorates of NHS England. Details of these events will be made available to stakeholders and through the Knowledge Network and the ARMA website very soon.
The recording of our 8th annual lecture, with Stephen Dorrell, former Health Secretary and currently Chair of the NHS Confederation (not to mention the European Movement), is now available on our website.
We are also working on new policy position papers on prevention, self-management and obesity, and will be exploring one on mental health & MSK.
Finally, please ensure that you are following @WeAreARMA on Twitter – though you’re welcome to continue to follow me, too, of course.
Today, the profile of MSK is higher than ever. Our Alliance is at the same time broader and arguably more united than it has ever been before. As always, ARMA will be what its members want it to be. I trust that you will help keep it a strong ARMA.
