Supporting patients with chronic pain

Pain is a symptom or condition that many prescribers come across in their daily scope of practice and many of them are faced with the challenges of prescribing in patients with chronic pain. It has been known for some time that a holistic approach to managing pain is more beneficial than viewing the use of analgesics as the only option and that many people live with ongoing pain despite analgesic prescriptions. This may be why a recent BBC news headline caught my eye, Chronic Pain: The ‘unbearable’ condition affecting one in four, along with the comment that experts state that current chronic pain treatments are failing millions (Clegg and Hughes, 2022).

These experts are leading clinicians in pain management including Dr Cathy Stannard, clinical pain lead for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). One of the analgesics under discussion is the familiar group of opioids. It seems that despite NICE (2021)guidance recommendations that chronic pain should not be treated with opioids or even paracetamol, a BBC IPSOS survey found that almost a quarter of those questioned who lived with chronic pain revealed that they are currently prescribed opioid medications. The survey of more than 4000 adults aged between 16–75 years was carried out by IPSOS on behalf of BBC News (Clegg and Hughes, 2022) and there is the suggestion that up to 25% of the UK population are living with chronic pain. As a result of the findings, pain specialists warn that the NHS is leaving millions of people with chronic pain struggling to get the support they need. This is a result of overwhelmed healthcare services not offering interventions at the forefront of the science but relying on older and outdated treatment options, many of which include opioids.