Latest News

Experts by Experience, a new Airing Pain episode recorded live at the British Pain Society's special interest group on pain management programmes, is coming soon. This episode looks at the psychological benefit to patients, and the professional value to healthcare trusts, of patient-volunteers working within pain management programmes.   Listen ...

Where? When? Pain Concern’s AGM will be held on 7th November 2019 at 10.30am and is open to all members of the charity. It will take place at 62-66 Newcraighall Road, Edinburgh EH15 3HS and by telephone conference. You can join in for free by phone and text. How to ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). For the first time, they have included chronic pain and provided specific pain diagnoses. Under the new system, chronic pain is classified as either chronic primary pain or chronic secondary pain. Chronic primary pain is defined ...

  NICE guidance on cannabis-based medicines out for consultation   The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued draft guidance for the use of cannabis-based medicines considering the evidence for their use in intractable nausea and vomiting; chronic pain; spasticity and epilepsy. It covers other related topics, ...

  The World Health Assembly (WHA) – a subsection of the World Health Organization (WHO) – has declared September Pain Awareness Month. This month is dedicated to raising public awareness and understanding of pain. Many organisations around the world contribute, including the U.S. Pain Foundation, the International Pain ...

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) has made 2019 their ‘Global Year against Pain in the Most Vulnerable’. The groups included in IASP’s Global Year against Pain in the Most Vulnerable are: older persons (including pain in dementia), infants and young children, individuals with ...

We are delighted to announce the return of our digital version of Pain Matters Pain Matters, the magazine for people living with chronic pain, is now available digitally! You can order the latest edition and all previous edition back to issue 48 now. Subscribe quarterly or annually, or just ...

As mentioned in the Latest News post of 17th October 2018 - and also featured in the forthcoming issue, issue 71, of Pain Matters - as of 1st April 2019, prescription drugs Pregabalin and Gabapentin are to be reclassified as Class C controlled substances. NHS England has just published updated ...

A recent article on the academic and current affairs website, The Conversation, by Professor Blair Smith from the University of Dundee, regarding his team’s study on the global increase in opioid use, has sparked debate over the overprescription of opioids in the UK. Professor Smith has found ...

Cannabis and Chronic Pain by John Finch The journal Pain recently published an important study on the use of cannabis, and medicines based on cannabis (cannabinoids), for chronic pain conditions (chronic pain in cancer patients was specifically excluded). Researchers were from institutes in Sydney, Brisbane and London specialising in ...