NHS failing to care for chronic pain sufferers, GPs say

SCOTTISH doctors struggle to help thousands of patients a year whose injuries have left them in constant pain, an investigation has found.

Scotland is at the top of the UK league table for chronic pain. Many cases are a legacy of jobs in heavy industry and coal mining.

But it was claimed last night that the NHS had failed to ensure it had a good pain management strategy that could help many people back into work and off benefits.

Doctors also want universities to teach more medical students about the effects of chronic - or long-term - pain to help them cope better in general practice work.

Chronic pain is one of the commonest reasons for seeing a GP and costs British business millions of pounds in lost profits every year as workers try to overcome their symptoms.

The investigation found treatment has become a postcode lottery, with many hospitals giving pain management low priority.

Dr Blair Smith, a Peterhead GP, said yesterday: "Chronic pain is not recognised by enough of the medical profession as a serious condition in itself.

"If more doctors were willing and able to think of someone as actually having chronic pain, as opposed to it being a side-effect, we would be able to treat them better."

Dr Smith said there was inequality of treatment throughout Scotland, with Highland region having no pain management facilities while Glasgow has two centres.

However, he added: "What this widespread problem needs is not just more money spent on it, it needs to be given a higher priority in education."

The health and social costs and the cost of lost working days associated with back pain alone are an estimated 12.3 billion per year - 22 per cent of UK healthcare expenditure.

The bill for the government is also high, with chronic pain due to musculo-skeletal problems listed as the second commonest reason for receipt of incapacity benefit, which costs almost 7 million a year to fund.

A delegation representing the Patients Association and the Long-term Medical Conditions Alliance is calling on MPs and MSPs to push for a radical overhaul in health service budgeting to make pain management a priority.

A survey by the leading independent healthcare research organisation Dr Foster has found more people in Scotland than almost any other part of the UK have chronic pain.

But a spokesman for the Scottish Executive said: "Last year we commissioned an independent review of chronic pain services as a response to a well- supported public petition. The report of the review will be made available shortly, along with the Executive’s response.

"There is no evidence that there is a higher incidence of people suffering from chronic pain in Scotland than in the rest of the UK."