The National Pain Audit

Introduction

Pain Clinics treat patients with chronic pain, for whom traditional disease centred therapies have failed, with the emphasis on regaining quality of life. However, many services are poorly resourced and practitioners isolated. Not enough is currently known about activity levels of these pain services, or about their clinical performance.

Two government reports have called for better assessment practices. In response The National Audit of Pain Services has been initiated to collect detailed data on pain services. The three year study aims to improve NHS services for people affected by chronic pain and will establish a national data collection system which will enable services to monitor performance, share data, feedback and consensus of interested parties. Areas of data collection will include, patient case mix, demographics, diagnosis, treatments, assessment of condition severity and patient outcomes.

For the latest news on the National Pain Audit click here