Putting pain under the spotlight

Feeling pain is the most frequent reason that people seek health care, and the most frequent reason for readmission.

So the RCN’s Pain and Palliative Care Forum thought it was important to share more understanding about pain and how it can be managed.

A conference, called Let’s Talk About Pain, was aimed at health care assistants, assistant practitioners and newly registered nurses as they form a key audience to understand more about the management of pain.

Sessions at the conference included putting patients at the heart of care, tools to help nursing staff to understand how a patient is in pain and a practical demonstration of how the pain impulse is transmitted through the body to receptors in the brain.

Delegates were told that 7.8 million people in the UK live with chronic pain, and of those, 49 per cent experience depression. More than £580 million is spent on pain prescriptions per year, one million women have chronic pelvic pain and 1.6 million adults have chronic back pain.

Forum Chair Felicia Cox said pain management is a vital subject for nursing staff, yet it takes up just one per cent of the curriculum for nursing students.

She said: “Undergraduate nurses receive 12 hours of pain education, and there is some in the NVQ training for HCAs. Meanwhile physiotherapists get 28 hours undergraduate study on pain.”

Felicia added that vets also spend more time studying pain than nursing staff.

The audience was not just made up of HCAs, APs and newly registered nurses. Felicia said: “We had some very senior nurses and a pain specialist nurse here. We believe the more senior nurses are coming to see what we are running locally for HCAs.”

Tanis Hand, RCN HCA and AP Adviser, said: “I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and learnt so much. The practical demonstration of the pain impulse really brought the subject to life. Feedback from the conference has been excellent, and demonstrates the need for more information on pain for all levels of nursing staff.”

The intention is to develop the conference into a roadshow which can be taken around the country.

A similar event was held by the forum in the south east - read more.