Airing Pain 52: Better Care for People in Pain

How to ensure peo­ple in pain get the best treat­ment: a new guide­line for chron­ic pain in Scotland

This edi­tion has been fund­ed by a grant from the Scot­tish Government.

At the launch of a new guide­line on treat­ment of chron­ic pain in Scot­land, Paul Evans speaks to patients and health­care pro­fes­sion­als about how to raise aware­ness and improve care.

Mar­i­on Beat­son and Susan Scott describe the strug­gles they both endured in try­ing to get appro­pri­ate care after devel­op­ing chron­ic pain. They both hope that the new guide­line will help peo­ple in pain get the sup­port they need in future by set­ting out clear­ly the treat­ment they can expect to receive. Marion’s daugh­ter Chloe talks mov­ing­ly about how her own life and her rela­tion­ship with her mum have been affect­ed by Marion’s chron­ic pain.

Nor­ma Turvill believes the guide­lines could raise aware­ness of the under-recog­nised issue of chron­ic pain which is still not under­stood by some health­care pro­fes­sion­als and Steve Gilbert explains how they could help trans­form treat­ment in pri­ma­ry care. Paul Cameron dis­cuss­es the guideline’s advice on exer­cise and the dif­fer­ent ways in which patients can access exer­cise therapies.’

Issues cov­ered in this pro­gramme include: Rais­ing aware­ness, pol­i­cy, fam­i­ly, rela­tion­ships, edu­cat­ing health­care pro­fes­sion­als, pri­ma­ry care, back pain, chron­ic pri­ma­ry pain, neu­ro­path­ic pain, exer­cise ther­a­pies, phys­io­ther­a­py, patient expe­ri­ence, young car­ers, vol­un­tary organ­i­sa­tions, employ­ment and exercise.

Con­trib­u­tors:

• Dr Steve Gilbert, Nation­al Lead Clin­i­cian for Chron­ic Pain, Health­care Improve­ment Scotland
• Nor­ma Turvill, Phys­io­ther­a­pist and Chron­ic Pain Ser­vices Facilitator
• Mar­i­on Beat­son, Patient representative
• Les­ley Colvin, Chair of SIGN Guide­line Group
• Susan Scott, Patient representative
• Paul Cameron, Pain Spe­cial­ist Physiotherapist.