Airing Pain 119: Experts by Experience: Working together in pain management programmes

Patient vol­un­teers and health­care pro­fes­sion­als on work­ing togeth­er in pain man­age­ment programmes

This edi­tion of Air­ing Pain has been sup­port­ed by a grant from the Plum Trust.

In Sep­tem­ber, the British Pain Society’s spe­cial inter­est group on pain man­age­ment pro­grammes held their annu­al con­fer­ence. A work­shop enti­tled ‘Experts by Expe­ri­ence – Work­ing Togeth­er in Pain Man­age­ment Pro­grammes’ was run in par­al­lel to this. The sym­po­sium brought togeth­er patient-vol­un­teers and health­care pro­fes­sion­als from four pain man­age­ment cen­tres around the UK to share their expe­ri­ence of work­ing together.

Dr Nick Ambler, Con­sul­tant Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist of the North Bris­tol NHS Trust’s Pain Man­age­ment Pro­gramme (PMP), facil­i­tat­ed the work­shop; chair­ing an uplift­ing, frank and empow­er­ing dis­cus­sion on the psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fit to patients and the pro­fes­sion­al val­ue to health­care trusts of patient-vol­un­teers work­ing with­in pain man­age­ment pro­grammes. This spe­cial extend­ed edi­tion of Air­ing Pain comes to you live from the con­fer­ence, let­ting you sit in on the discussion.

Patient-vol­un­teer Prim­rose Granville opens by giv­ing a fun­ny, relat­able and inspir­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of how vol­un­teer­ing with her PMP has trans­formed and empow­ered her life and expe­ri­ence of pain.

Dr Deb­bie Joy, Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist and Clin­i­cal Lead of Pain Ser­vices for NHS Solent Trust, address­es some of the ini­tial anx­i­eties she had around the intro­duc­tion of patient-vol­un­teers to a clin­i­cal set­ting, but ulti­mate­ly asserts that they are ‘def­i­nite­ly stronger with experts by expe­ri­ence by their side’.

Pain coach­es for NHS Dorset – Pen­ny and Deb­bie – offer con­struc­tive advice for pro­fes­sion­als and vol­un­teers on how you pain coach and engage with peo­ple liv­ing with pain effec­tive­ly and sympathetically.

The founder of Glas­gow Com­mu­ni­ty Pain Edu­ca­tion Ses­sions – John Brem­n­er, talks about how this mod­el of expert by expe­ri­ence in action works, and how they run it eth­i­cal­ly and effec­tive­ly. Lind­say talks about how reward­ing an expe­ri­ence it has been, vol­un­teer­ing as a pain train­er for this ini­tia­tive, encour­ag­ing oth­ers to get involved.

The sym­po­sium ends with the group shar­ing their expe­ri­ences and insights in an open floor discussion.

Con­tact your GP or rel­e­vant pain man­age­ment pro­gramme if you are inter­est­ed in volunteering.

Issues cov­ered in this pro­gramme include: Peer sup­port, com­mu­ni­cat­ing pain, com­mu­ni­ty health­care, con­fi­dence, employ­ment, gabapentin, laugh­ing yoga, osteoarthri­tis, patient vol­un­teer, Scot­tish par­lia­ment, sup­port group, train­ing course, vol­un­teer­ing and workshops.

Con­trib­u­tors:

• Dr Nick Ambler, Con­sul­tant Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist for the North Bris­tol NHS Trust’s Pain Man­age­ment Programme
• Prim­rose Granville, per­son liv­ing with pain and patient vol­un­teer with the North Bris­tol NHS Trust Pain Man­age­ment Programme
• Dr Deb­o­rah Joy, Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gist and Clin­i­cal Lead of Pain Ser­vices for the NHS Solent Trust
• Pen­ny and Deb­bie, pain coach­es for the Dorset NHS Trust
• John Brem­n­er, per­son liv­ing with pain, pain train­er and founder of Glas­gow Com­mu­ni­ty Pain Edu­ca­tion Sessions
• Lind­say, per­son liv­ing with pain and pain train­er for Glas­gow Com­mu­ni­ty Pain Edu­ca­tion Sessions
• Dr Mar­tin Dun­bar, Clin­i­cal Lead and Con­sul­tant Psy­chol­o­gist for NHS Great Glas­gow and Clyde.

More infor­ma­tion:

• Air­ing Pain 32: Pain Man­age­ment Programmes
• Glas­gow Com­mu­ni­ty Pain Edu­ca­tion Sessions
• Vol­un­teer from home with Pain Con­cern: painconcern.org.uk/volunteer/.