Submissions and Policy Updates

Consultation: NICE Chronic Pain Assessment and Management Guidelines

Painaustralia provided input to inform the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s consultation on the draft Chronic Pain Assessment and Management Guidelines.

Our submission highlights that pain needs to be recognised as a national and public health priority if we are to make real advances in knowledge translation. Current research indicates that multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary pain management is the most efficient, effective and practical approach to managing chronic pain. Overall, both the UK and Australia need to ensure people living with pain are supported with appropriate services, treatments and education about best practice pain management, particularly with increasingly diminished access to pain medications.

Consumers also need timely access to pain management programs to learn how to self-manage pain and find the support and help they need. If we want to reduce reliance on quick-fix medication solutions and the associated harms, we need to invest in the treatments that work alongside or instead of medication to maximise health outcomes.

Painaustralia’s submission can be found here.