Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to prevent worsening chronicity of pain in people suffering from chronic pain.

The routine assessment and management of pain is a required competency of all healthcare professionals. Many patients with chronic pain can be successfully supported and managed through routine primary and secondary care pain management services. Approaches to treatment are not all pharmacological; education in self-management techniques to aid symptom control may also be appropriate for some patients.

As set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January 2019, low back and neck pain is the greatest cause of years lost to disability, with chronic joint pain or osteoarthritis affecting over 8.75 million people in the United Kingdom. In the Long Term Plan NHS England committed to build on work already undertaken to ensure patients will have direct access to musculoskeletal First Contact Practitioners (FCP). 98% of sustainability and transformation partnerships have confirmed pilot sites for FCP and 55% of pilots are already underway.

NHS England will expand the number of physiotherapists working in primary care networks, enabling people to see the right professional first time, without needing a general practitioner referral. NHS England will also expand access to support such as the online version of ESCAPE-pain, Enabling Self-management and Coping with Arthritic Pain through Exercise, a digital version of the well-established, face-to-face group programme.