Telephone triage assessment for musculoskeletal disorders: part 1

Changes in the delivery of occupational health and wellbeing services can affect the employer, employees and service users. Despite the impact of such changes, many organisations implement them without understanding their true effects. Support of staff and service users is needed if change is to be implemented and services reconfigured to improve overall efficiency. A diagnostic analysis has been recommended as a precursor to assess what impact a change would have. This paper explores the process of a diagnostic analysis before nursing telephone triage assessment for musculoskeletal disorders was implemented in an occupational health and wellbeing service. Mixed methods were used to gather the relevant information.