MS Variance - Alastair Hignell: Dinner Speech

November 2018 saw our first in a series of events set to tackle MS service variation in the NHS. The event highlighted a number of challenges to improving health and social care, to deliver more equitable and optimised MS services in the UK. It also saw over 110 professionals discuss and agree some of the ways forward, and heard innovative solutions posed.
We at the MS Academy are committed to being part of the change needed to end service variation for multiple sclerosis, and we know how key information sharing and education is to that change.
multiplesclerosisacademy.org/...
Background to MS Variance:
Variance in MS Services, for example, access to and the prescribing of disease-modifying therapies, have been well documented across England by surveys performed by the MS Society, MS Trust and the RCP. This has been backed up by data presented at the ABN in Birmingham from the NHSE Bluteq database. We and others feel this is a problem for people living with MS and is a barrier to improving outcomes for pwMS being managed by the NHS in England. To address this problem we held an initial meeting of representatives from MS DMT prescribing centres across England. The aim of the meeting was to generate ideas and proposals to address and solve this problem. We envisage holding subsequent follow-on meetings to implement and test potential proposals developed as a result of this meeting.