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Pain Summit Report - Putting Pain on the Agenda

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Category: Medical Info and Drug Trials

Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 11:46

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On Wednesday the 4th July, the House of Commons launched their First English Pain Summit report called “Putting Pain on the Agenda”.  This was following the actual Pain Summit held in November 2011 where members from Sheffield were invited to attend and speak by Dr Ollie Hart.

This set the precedence of a joint venture organised by the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition (CPPC), the British Pain Society, the Faculty of Pain Medicine and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Over 150 patients, healthcare professionals, parliamentarians and policy makers gathered at Central Hall, Westminster to discuss current pain services in the UK and the impact of pain on those who live with it. Organised by the British Pain Society, the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition (CPPC), Royal College of General Practitioners and the Faculty of Pain Medicine, this was the first such event in England.

The All Party Group on Chronic Pain kindly agreed to host this launch of the final report of the Pain Summit. This in an in-depth report of the day which has developed the conversations of the summit into concrete actions under three key areas: commissioning, education and public health.

FMA UK was represented by Julie Powell and Tracy Figueria from the Fibro Friends Association Putney.  There were at least 80 people which allowed for plenty of networking whilst launching the report and the all important recommendations that it details.

The overview of this launch was to clarify what future activity should be agreed to increase the quality of life for people living with chronic pain:

• by meeting the standards to reduce diagnosed time limits from the current years to months;
• by creating systems to eliminate confusion in recognising the pain and its cause;
• to ensure pain is a recognised and visible to all with the correct access to treatments, care and education support
• to create the right conditions to support people in pain to remain in and return to work.

Hopefully this is the first of many summits and by working together towards the same goals there is the hope that pain will finally be recognised.

To read the report please go to http://www.painsummit.org.uk/news/articles/final-report-pain-summit-launched.

FMA UK will continue to be involved in this initiative through its membership of CCPC.