Between 01 January 2017 and 31 December 2017, personnel in the British Armed Forces suffered from a total of 74,073 musculoskeletal injuries (MKSI).

	Naval Service	Army	RAF
All MSK	12,946	46,239	14,888
Upper Limb	3,731	11,643	4,093
Shoulder	1,860	6,365	2,152
Elbow	528	1,392	650
Forearm	51	164	75
Wrist/Hand	1,501	4,360	1,408
Other Upper Limb	153	438	179
Lower Limb	7,070	29,027	8,071
Hips	584	2,258	702
Knee & Other [1]	2,974	12,658	3,428
Ankle & Foot	3,058	12,501	3,379
Other Lower Limb	1,725	7,478	1,842
Other [2]	5,849	21,707	7,195
Neck	880	2,587	71,184
Thoracic spine	293	1,223	438
Lumbar spine	2,823	11,211	3,448
Other unspecified	3,303	12,380	3,782
Unspecified Site [3]	514	1,730	721

Notes:

1. Other includes MSKI which affect the knee but which are not necessarily part of the joint. For example, tibial plateau disorders.
2. Other refers to MSKI which are not upper or lower limb. For example, head, back, etc.
3. Unspecified site refers to MSKI where there may be no specified injury location. For example, osteoporosis.
4. Totals may not add up due to some personnel having multiple MSK records or may move between services.

MSK codes on the Defence Medical Information Capability Programme (DMICP), a centralised data warehouse of coded information, has a list of 2,364 read codes as authorised by a number of clinicians who are members of the Defence Musculoskeletal Health Advisory Group (DMHAG).

Reference

FOI 2018/09084 dated 08 August 2018.