ARMA - Chronic pain policy position paper: Executive summary (November 2021)

Summary

Chronic (persistent or long-lasting or recurrent) pain is life-changing and can significantly impact individuals, their families and carers. This paper sets out the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance's (ARMA's) position on how pain affects people with musculoskeletal conditions, and how their pain should be managed.

Content

In this paper, ARMA makes the following recommendations:

1. Develop multidisciplinary, networked, personalised approaches to pain as standard.
2. Develop more community-based approaches to pain. Everyone with chronic pain should be offered a holistic assessment of their symptoms in primary care reviewing the impact on their physical and mental health, their activities of daily living and their wellbeing, including the ability to work/study, and explore any underlying causes of or contributors to their pain.
3. A public health approach is needed based on community need to design and target effective public health interventions to support those who have chronic pain to improve their health and their quality of life.
4. Take a strategic, integrated population health approach to commissioning pain services ensuring money transcends organisational boundaries, focussed on the provision of a range of chronic pain support options and intervention allowing for personalisation.
5. There should be early access to treatment for painful conditions to minimise pain becoming chronic, including rapid diagnosis, which is important to people.
6. Integrated physical and mental health support for people with MSK pain conditions should be available and every CCG should include MSK chronic pain in IAPT for Long Term Conditions with staff who have joint expertise in both physical and mental health and understanding of chronic pain.
7. Understand health inequalities, discuss and implement levers for change. Systems and services should allow equity in access, experience of using NHS services and equity of outcomes for all groups. Systems and services should be inclusive and culturally sensitivity.
8. Social prescribing to provide supported self-management at scale.
9. Every person with chronic pain should have access to peer support and be signposted to the patient organisations relevant to them.
10. Healthcare professionals education and training to include understanding and management of pain and emphasise the personalised biopsychosocial approach and communications skills training to support them to have good conversations.
11. Public education – including employers, public attitudes to increase health literacy and understanding of pain.