Summer 2010 - The British Pain Society

Internationally the SIG
is active with Eloise
co-chairing IASP Satellite
Conference in Toronto, August
26-27th with Professor Judy
Watson (Canada) and several
SIG Committee and members
presenting.
http://bloomberg.nursing.utoronto.
ca/PainSymposium.htm.
It is anticipated that there will be
a joint workshop between the
Canadian and the UK SIGs at the
2011 joint ASM.
Neuropathic Pain SIG
The Neuropathic Pain SIG held its
AGM at Manchester. This particular
SIG has a large membership
but has trouble engaging with it.
This could possibly be achieved
through an interactive SIG
members section on the BPS
website.
It held a well attended and very
interactive workshop at the
ASM on the NICE Neuropathic
guidelines. It is felt that this
community has a lot of meetings
already so there is no need or
demand that the SIG run meetings
outside of the ASM, although it
was involved in the Neuropathic
Pain Study Day last year. There
could also be the possibility of
a joint meeting with the Primary
Care SIG (in the process of being
created at the time of this meeting,
since passed by council).
Two topics on which the
membership could be engaged
with would be monitoring and
auditing the NICE Guidelines and
also Research. The latter will be
better defined after the Audit and
Research survey of BPS members
is completed.
Pain in Older People SIG
The SIG has held workshops at
the ASM and there will also be
a workshop at IASP. The group
still has concerns regarding the
assessment of pain in older people
guidelines which do not appear to
be taken up. The group continues
to work on the management of
pain guidelines which will be
available early in 2011.
Interventional Pain Medicine
SIG
The SIG's annual meeting in
Manchester was well attended,
and at the meeting it was decided
that there was the need to form
a research group to find out what
evidence there is and to plan
future research. The research
group had its first meeting on the
23rd March 2010.
The SIG has formed a best
practice guidelines committee for
interventional procedures. The SIG
would like to produce a newsletter
for its members.
The SIG reported the impact of
the NICE guidelines were not
uniform across the country and
that in some areas they had been
used as a reason for stopping
procedures
Acute Pain SIG
The SIG holds no additional
scientific meetings outside of
the ASM there being several
recognised acute pain meetings
held already around the UK but
has met informally alongside the
National Acute Pain Symposium in
Chester in September.
The issue of future training for
people dealing solely with acute
pain is still unresolved with
the Faculty, the situation being
complicated by the Royal College
of Anaesthetists who have put
together a package for acute pain
training as part of core anaesthetic
training. This training will not be
adequate for fellowship of the
Faculty of Pain Medicine.
Next year the SIG is going
to launch a two phase audit
project under the banner National
In-Patient Pain Survey (NIPPS).
Phase 1 is a survey of current
practice via the NIPPS website
which is due on-line soon
(www.nipps.org.uk). Around
300 hospitals will be invited
to complete an on-line survey
describing their service and its
resources to give a comprehensive
and constantly updateable view
of UK wide acute pain provision,
the results of which will be
available on the website in due
course. Passwords for the website
will be distributed in the near
future. Phase 2 of the audit is to
establish a quality benchmarking
system for In Patient Pain similar
to the ICNARC system for Critical
Care. 20 pilot sites have been
identified which are currently
collecting the minimum dataset as
a test of feasibility. This work has
been undertaken alongside Mela
Solutions who have developed a
software package allowing easy
bedside data collection. The
plan is to provide twice yearly
performance statistics for each
participant hospital against the
average of all participants as a
means of ensuring quality and
driving continual improvement. At
present participation requires the
purchase of the Mela Solutions
Acute Pain Audit software but
it is hoped that in due course
other portals for participation will
become available.
Pain in Children SIG
The SIG elected a Vice-Chair at
its 2010 business meeting, Gwen
Porter, who will take over as
Chair next year. Christina Liossi,
on behalf of the SIG, consulted
widely and contributed a section
which has been included in the
soon to be published Cancer Pain
guidelines.
In September, the Royal College
of Nursing guidelines on The
Recognition and Assessment
of Acute Pain in Children was
published. John Goddard (SIG
Chair), representing the BPS,
was a member of the guideline
development group. The guideline
has been endorsed by the
BPS; also by the Association of
Paediatric Anaesthetists and the
Royal College of Paediatrics and
Child Health.
Led by Diabetes UK, a consortium
of medical children’s charities
is campaigning for statutory
provision of support in schools
for children with chronic health
conditions. The SIG is a members
of this consortium. A high profile
“question time” event occurred in
Westminster on October 27th with
a panel of shadow ministers and
Sheila Shribman, National Clinical
Director for Children. A patient
and parent represented the BPS
SIG at this event. The SIG will
also be contributing views on this
matter to Sir Ian Kennedy’s review
of NHS services for children.
The working party on
Recommendations for the
management of complex noncancer
pain in children and young
people has been active throughout
the year.
The SIG has also been successful
in obtaining an unrestricted
educational grant from Grünenthal
to support a clinical nurse
specialist in capturing national data
on the pediatric use of Lidocaine
medicated plasters.
PAI N N E W S S U M M E R 2010 19