We know our volunteers make great use of MS Society information resources to support people with MS and their families, health and social care professionals.
We want to update you on how our information is changing and why. And also to let you know how we’ll keep you better informed of updates.
New formats and old
Our information now comes in many shapes and sizes – printed booklets, web pages, factsheets to download, online videos, animations and e-learning.
More and more people are using our online information, so we’re always looking to improve that – to answer the questions the MS community asks, and to make it easy to use.
But we also know that sometimes people need a printed booklet. So we still have our most widely used booklets printed and available free of charge from our online shop. These topics are also covered online, but we plan to keep printing these booklets.
What’s changing with printed booklets?
Although we’re still printing booklets, there will be fewer titles printed than we’ve had before. As we go through 2022, other titles will be reviewed and updated for web pages or other online resources.
For example, our general booklet on disease modifying therapies will be replaced by the upcoming DMT online tool, to help people explore their best DMT options.
Making changes like this means we can:
make vital updates more quickly to online information.
save MS Society funds and focus resources where they have the biggest impact. This is part of the MS Society’s overall efforts to reduce costs.
We’ll still print:
- What is MS? (in English and Welsh)
- Just diagnosed (in English and Welsh)
- Managing your relapses
Understanding progressive MS
“I have MS” card (credit-card size)
Information resources (promotes our information resources, included printed titles)
Fatigue
Pain and unpleasant sensations in MS
Diet and nutrition
Moving more with MS
Work and MS – an employee’s guide
- Benefits and MS
- Claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
The Work Capability Assessment – for ESA and Universal Credit
For family and friends – when someone close to you has MS
- Supporting Someone with MS – a guide for family and carers
- Advanced MS: a carer's handbook
Making things accessible
As well as the printed booklets, we aim to make our information as accessible as possible.
Self-print and large print
All our web pages and pdfs of booklets can be printed at normal size and in large print. Most of our booklets are A5 size, so at double size they fit onto A4 paper.
Translations
Our translated What is MS? booklet in other languages will continue to be available in PDF format. Find information about MS in other languages.
Web-friendly
We constantly update and review our website to improve how easy it is to find our information through search engines like Google. And the site is optimised for mobile phones, tablets and larger screens – so whatever device someone uses it’s easy to navigate and read.
Audio description and screen readers
Our videos include full audio description, and the website is designed and written to work with screen readers.
MS Helpline
You or anyone you speak to can contact our MS Helpline for information and support about any MS-related topics. They’re on the phone, email and Facebook direct messaging.
We’ll keep you up to date
As we review and update topics, we’ll make sure the web pages cover the latest version of the information. And we’ll remove out of date booklets (so people don’t get old information). We’ll also remove the PDFs of the older booklets, which are less accessible than web pages.
We’ll let you know through these emails when there’s a new resource – whether that’s a new edition of a booklet, a new topic online, a video like the recent 'Make your move' exercise DVD, or the new DMT tool.
Latest versions
We’ll keep a list of the latest versions of our printed booklets in the Resource library on the Volunteer Website. This has all titles still available in print.
You can find and order the latest available titles through our online shop.
Your feedback
If you have any feedback on our information – in any format – please let us know.
We need to make savings, and we want to make the very best use of MS Society funds. We also want to make our information as accessible as possible in whatever formats we can. If our choice of printed booklets needs to change over time, we’ll do that.
