Musculoskeletal health profile
Introduction
Musculoskeletal conditions are the leading cause of pain and disability in England and account for one of the highest causes of sickness absence and productivity loss.
This profile's goal is to:
- provide meaningful data
- enable the commissioning of high value musculoskeletal services
Musculoskeletal data is essential for understanding the:
- health needs of local populations
- amount of people accessing services
- cost of services
- outcomes services deliver
Indicators should not generally be used in isolation but in combination to produce an overall picture of the local situation. By using these indicators in conjunction with other locally available data, organisations can have a deep understanding of areas of interest. By doing so, you can:
- understand the deeper reasons underlying variation
- identify opportunities for improvement
- support the necessary work to deliver high-value services for people with musculoskeletal conditions
For enquiries or feedback relating to the Musculoskeletal health: local profiles, email profilefeedback@dhsc.gov.uk
Changes: Fingertips MSK profile
In June 2025, we asked users for their views on specific changes we planned to make to the profile based on responses we received to the health and social care statistical outputs consultation. These changes will be made in future updates. In summary this will include:
- addition of new indicators for prevalence of national level musculoskeletal conditions from the Health Survey for England (HSE) and for economic inactivity rate
- archiving of some older indicators that it is no longer possible to update and to review the topic and profile more broadly.