Sussex MSK Partnership: What It Is and How to Get Seen

Sussex MSK Partnership was an NHS musculoskeletal service covering bone, joint and muscle conditions. It operated as a partnership rather than a single organisation, bringing together Here (previously Brighton and Hove Integrated Care Service), Horder Healthcare, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

It ran in two arms. Sussex MSK Partnership Central covered Brighton and Hove and the Horsham and Mid Sussex area, and Sussex MSK Partnership East covered a different part of the county. The word "Central" printed on a leaflet or an exercise sheet is a geographical marker rather than a description of the service level, which is a frequent source of confusion when a sheet reaches somebody who lives elsewhere in Sussex.

The model was referral management plus treatment: rather than a GP sending you straight to a hospital orthopaedic department, referrals went to the partnership, which triaged them and directed each one to the right place, whether that was physiotherapy, an advanced practitioner, rheumatology, chronic pain services or an orthopaedic surgeon.

On 2 December 2024, NHS Sussex launched a new integrated musculoskeletal service across Sussex, described as the culmination of four years of work. It brought orthopaedics, pain, rheumatology, physiotherapy, diagnostics and surgical treatment into a single pathway in each area.

The delivery split into two, by geography:

• East Sussex: the East Sussex MSK Community Partnership, delivered by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Horder Healthcare.
• Brighton and Hove, and West Sussex: Sussex MSK Health, delivered by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust and Here.

So "Sussex MSK Partnership" is now largely a historical name, and materials carrying it remain in circulation because exercise sheets and information leaflets outlive the branding on them. The clinical content of those sheets is unaffected by the reorganisation.

Coverage follows the GP surgery you are registered with rather than your postcode, which matters if you live near a county boundary or are registered with a practice in a neighbouring town.

For Uckfield, Crowborough, Heathfield, Lewes, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Hastings and the rest of East Sussex, referrals are handled by the East Sussex MSK Community Partnership. It manages routine musculoskeletal referrals including orthopaedics, chronic pain, pelvic health, physiotherapy and rheumatology, and delivers care from community clinics across the county rather than only from hospital sites.

For Brighton and Hove and West Sussex, including Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and the Mid Sussex area, the equivalent service is Sussex MSK Health.

If you are unsure which applies, your GP practice will know, and both services publish their boundaries. Referring into the wrong one usually means a delay rather than a refusal, but it is a delay worth avoiding.

The most useful thing to know is that you do not necessarily need a GP appointment first. The East Sussex service accepts referrals from a range of practitioners including your GP, physiotherapy providers and other NHS services, and it also offers self-referral for physiotherapy directly, without needing to see a clinician first.

That route is free and is the sensible starting point for most non-urgent musculoskeletal problems. What it involves is a wait, which varies by condition and by how the service triages your referral, and an initial appointment that may be by telephone or video before any in-person assessment.

Things that fall outside the routine pathway and need a different route: suspected fractures and acute injuries (urgent care or A&E), symptoms suggesting a serious cause such as unexplained weight loss, fever with joint pain, or new bladder and bowel changes with back pain (contact your GP or NHS 111 promptly), and conditions the service specifically excludes, which are listed on its own website.

If you have already been given exercises to get on with, our article on whether you need a referral to see a physiotherapist covers how the NHS and private routes compare and when each makes sense.

If the service has given you an exercise sheet, it is worth doing what it says rather than searching for something more sophisticated. The exercises prescribed for the common musculoskeletal problems are clear, correctly dosed and well chosen, and the thing that most often goes wrong is the dose slipping rather than the exercises being unsuitable.

We have written up the problems that come up most often, with the dosage and the evidence behind each: the frozen shoulder exercises, the RCRSP information and rehab programme, the median nerve glides, the golfer's elbow exercises, the tibialis posterior exercises, the peroneal stretches, the neck strengthening exercises and the rotator cuff tear programme.

A general point about all of them: a sheet tells you what to do and cannot tell you whether it is the right sheet for your problem. That is the one thing an assessment adds, and it is why the same handout helps one person quickly and does nothing for another with apparently similar pain.

For anyone in Uckfield weighing up how to get seen, the honest picture is that there are three routes and they answer different questions. NHS self-referral through the East Sussex MSK Community Partnership costs nothing and is the right first move for most non-urgent problems, with a wait attached. A GP appointment is the route when something needs medical assessment, prescribing or investigation rather than rehabilitation. Private physiotherapy buys time and continuity rather than a different diagnosis.

What an assessment adds, whichever route it comes through, is the sorting. A good share of the people who arrive having done an exercise sheet diligently for eight weeks were given a sheet for the wrong problem: the neck that was actually a shoulder, the hip that was actually a tendon on the outside of it, the wrist that was actually a nerve root. Time spent on the right exercises is worth considerably more than more time on the wrong ones, and that is the question an assessment settles.

If you are not sure whether physiotherapy is the right route at all, or which of these three suits your situation, a free discovery and triage call is a reasonable way to find out before committing to anything.

Does Sussex MSK Partnership still exist?
The name largely belongs to the arrangements that ran before December 2024. Musculoskeletal care in East Sussex is now delivered by the East Sussex MSK Community Partnership, and in Brighton and Hove and West Sussex by Sussex MSK Health.

Can I refer myself for NHS physiotherapy in East Sussex?
Yes. The East Sussex MSK Community Partnership offers self-referral for physiotherapy without needing to see a GP first.

What does the service cover?
Bone, joint and muscle conditions, plus rheumatology and chronic pain, with routine referrals for orthopaedics, physiotherapy and pelvic health managed through the same pathway.

My exercise sheet says "Central". Does it still apply to me?
The clinical content is unaffected. "Central" refers to the area the sheet was originally produced for, and the exercises themselves are used across the country.

How long is the wait?
It varies by condition and by how the referral is triaged. The service publishes current information, and your GP practice can usually give a realistic idea.