Creating change together - the impact of our campaigning in 2024

At Versus Arthritis, we campaign for change so that people with arthritis can live the lives they choose with real hope of a cure in the future, and 2024 was our biggest year yet.

It’s time to take arthritis seriously

The UK General Election was a huge opportunity for us to put arthritis firmly on the political agenda. With the help of our community, we’ve been able to make sure that politicians are taking arthritis more seriously than ever before.

Whether you signed an open letter, emailed your local politicians, or shared your story, tens of thousands of you joined us to demand change for everyone living with arthritis across the UK.

Here are just a few ways we helped make arthritis a political priority in 2024.

UK General Election

When the General Election was called in May this year, we launched our manifesto: 10 million reasons to take arthritis seriously. In it, we called on politicians to recognise the impact of arthritis and commit to creating a better future for our community by:

1. Making arthritis a health priority.
2. Tackling waiting times for essential planned care – like knee and hip replacements – so that people with arthritis can live life on their own terms again.
3. Investing more in musculoskeletal research to help drive life-changing breakthroughs.
4. Supporting people with arthritis to stay, or return to, work.
5. Giving children and young people with arthritis the right tools in school, at home, and in the community so they can thrive.

Almost 20,000 of you emailed our manifesto to your local candidates, reaching all 650 constituencies in the UK. This meant every elected Member of Parliament (MP) entered Parliament having seen our calls for change.

Our open letter to the Prime Minister

Following the General Election, we launched an open letter to the new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, calling for his new government to take action on the five priorities.

By World Arthritis Day on 12 October, almost 86,000 of you had added your name and demanded that arthritis be taken seriously.

Getting MPs to take arthritis seriously  

Since the General Election in June, we hosted two events in Parliament with the aim of building a Parliament of Arthritis Champions. Arthritis Champions are MPs who support our work and take action for people with arthritis in Parliament and locally.

Around 80 MPs from across the UK attended these events and were able to speak to some of our campaigners – hearing what it’s like living with arthritis and what they need to see change in order to live the lives they choose. Many of these MPs told us that it was emails from their constituents – you – that encouraged them to attend.

It’s so important to have supportive MPs within Parliament championing the issues that matter to this community, to push for real political change for people with arthritis.

Our work across the UK

As health is funded and managed differently across the UK, we have been influencing governments and health leaders in the four nations to make sure that arthritis is taken seriously by them, too. 

• England
• Wales
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland

England

10-Year Health Plan

In Autumn this year, the UK Government launched its consultation for a new 10-Year Health Plan, looking to shape the priorities and direction of the NHS in England for the next 10 years.

We put together a detailed response to the Government’s consultation, calling for the plan to include:

This is a fantastic opportunity for us to put arthritis on the map within the NHS over the next decade and we will continue to push for change on the issues that matter for people with arthritis.

Your stories can help create that change. The Government needs to understand what it's like living with arthritis and navigating the NHS - day in, day out.

Will you join us in making sure the 10-Year Health Plan delivers for people with arthritis?

Tackling waiting times

In the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor announced an extra £22.6 billion for the Department of Health and Social Care to support the NHS in England, with much of it helping to tackle the waiting times backlog. This money will help deliver 40,000 extra appointments a week. In addition, the government have committed to creating new surgical hubs (places where planned operations can be delivered quickly).

This announcement is positive news for our community, who have been campaigning tirelessly for many years to bring down long waits for planned care, including joint replacement surgery.

2025 is kicking off with another big piece of news for our community. On 6 January, the Government launched its Elective Care Reform Plan to tackle waiting lists. The need for a plan to tackle waiting lists was one of our main calls throughout 2024, and the plan included many things that we have been calling for, like the rollout of surgical hubs and better communication for people on waiting lists.

We will continue to monitor implementation to ensure that people with arthritis on the waiting lists get the treatment and care they need.

Supporting people with arthritis in work

Versus Arthritis met with the new Employment Minister in September and held a roundtable on the barriers to staying in work for people with arthritis.

As a result, we were invited to join a Government advisory group on health and work, to make sure that the needs of people with arthritis in the workplace are represented in discussions about health and employment. 

We know that this is an important issue for so many in this community – in 2025 we will be at the forefront of these conversations to make sure that people with arthritis are properly supported to find and stay in work.

Wales

Paving the way for an MSK strategy in Wales

This year, the Welsh Government launched a new MSK (musculoskeletal) Framework to help join up services and support for people with arthritis across Wales, and we played a part in making this happen. We worked closely with policy leaders to develop the Framework, and back in March 2024, we asked you to share your experiences with the Welsh Government to help shape this strategy – to make sure it properly reflects the needs of people with arthritis.

In October, the new National Strategic Clinical Network for MSK Conditions was also launched in Wales. This network includes clinical leaders, health professionals, charities and people living with arthritis, and has set an ambitious vision to reduce the impact of MSK conditions (such as arthritis) in Wales: enabling people with arthritis to grow well, live well, work well and age well. This is big news for our community as we have been campaigning for dedicated leadership in this area for over 8 years in Wales.

Helping people wait well before surgery

We have been working closely with the Welsh Government on their ‘3Ps Waiting Well Programme’ (Promoting healthy behaviours, Preventing deconditioning whilst waiting, and Preparing for treatment and recovery) to make sure people with arthritis waiting for planned care, including joint replacement surgery, are supported to manage their condition and stay as well as they can.

As part of this work, call centres have been set up in each Health Board in Wales for people on waiting lists. This will help people with arthritis get helpful information about how to stay well and where they can turn to for support. We know many people on waiting lists often feel abandoned, and this is a step towards improving communication and support while people wait for treatment.

World Arthritis Day

On World Arthritis Day, 16 public buildings across Wales lit up blue to shine a light on arthritis - our Changemaker volunteers took selfies in front of the buildings and many local representatives shared their support on social media.

This was an important way for us to both celebrate and show the progress that has been made on making sure that arthritis is a priority in Wales, and we will continue to make sure that arthritis cannot be ignored in the new year.

Scotland

Calling for a new MSK framework

Over the year, we worked with health professionals on building the case for an MSK (musculoskeletal) strategy for Scotland, to improve recognition, services and support for people with arthritis across the country.

Tackling waiting times

We met with the Cabinet Secretary for Health in May to discuss progress on waiting times for planned care and have also met with the Scottish Government’s Head of Performance & Delivery for an in-depth discussion on the issue.

We also continue to be part of the Scottish Government’s national Waiting Well Steering Group, working with the Proactive and Preventative Care team to try and make sure that people with arthritis waiting for planned care are properly supported. Versus Arthritis has also contributed to a research project looking at Waiting Well services.

However, progress on tackling the backlog has been disappointing and we have continued to call out the government on its failure to deliver on its promises around planned care. This included letters published in the national press, being interviewed on BBC News, and regular engagement with Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and political parties.

As waiting times remain unacceptably high, we will keep up the pressure in 2025, including making the case for more collaboration between governments across the UK to tackle this common challenge.

ACHE project

We produced a report on the work of the ACHE (Arthritis Community Health Engagement) project in Drumchapel, a working-class community in the north of Glasgow. The focus of the work is on the meaning and role of ‘community’ in supporting people with arthritis and other MSK conditions.

The ACHE project worked with community groups, local GPs and other local healthcare workers and is a fantastic example of how working with communities in a meaningful way can have a positive impact on the lives of people with arthritis – particularly those in more socioeconomically deprived areas.

Northern Ireland

Tackling waiting times

Throughout 2024, we have been engaging with Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to highlight the unacceptably high waiting times for orthopaedics and rheumatology across Northern Ireland. We know that waiting times in Northern Ireland are by far the worst in the UK, with people waiting years for a first outpatient appointment with a consultant in rheumatology and orthopaedics, then continuing to wait years for surgery.

We must make arthritis a health priority in Northern Ireland.

Our contact with MLAs has resulted in a steady increase of Assembly Questions relating to musculoskeletal health and waiting times being submitted to the health minister – an important step in pushing for change and making sure that this issue is a political priority, but action is still desperately needed.

We are determined that people with arthritis in Northern Ireland will not be forgotten as they wait for treatment, and we will continue to push for action on this issue in the new year.

Waiting well before surgery

We know that the waiting times crisis does not have a quick fix, but we also know that people with arthritis are waiting in unbearable pain, unsupported by the system, with lives on hold, health deteriorating and their ability to work at risk. To highlight the need for support, we held a Waiting Well Roundtable at Stormont - this brought together the health minister, senior policy makers, professional bodies, and MLAs to explore actions and strategies to support patients' physical and mental wellbeing, help them to remain in work, manage their pain and stay active while they wait for treatment. They also heard from people living with arthritis directly about what it’s like waiting for surgery, not knowing what to expect or where to turn to for support.

As a result of this event, the Department of Health made a commitment to better patient communication and support as part of its Elective Care Framework, a huge win for people with arthritis in Northern Ireland. Since then, we have been working with the Department to develop a ‘waiting well’ policy and ensure that this leads to better support for people with arthritis will they wait.

We’ve been spreading the message of waiting times and waiting well at Northern Ireland political party conferences, running joint events with the Royal College of Surgeons.  We also spoke to individual members of the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Committee, asking that they prioritise improving support for people with arthritis, and we been invited to give evidence on this topic at the committee in January.

World Arthritis Day

On World Arthritis Day, 14 public buildings across Northern Ireland lit up blue to shine a light on arthritis - one of our Changemaker volunteers even lit up his own house blue for the occasion! 

We’re here whenever you need us

Although this has been a successful campaigning year for us, we know that hundreds of thousands of people are still in need of support.

If you would like to talk to someone, remember you can:

• Call our free helpline on 0800 5200 520.
• Chat with our Arthritis Virtual Assistant (AVA).
• Join our online community.
• Stay in touch and follow us on X (Twitter), Facebook and Instagram.