Written question WQ89104

The aim of the Living with Persistent Pain guidance is to move towards a greater focus on supporting people to develop skills to enable them to take greater control of managing their persistent pain for themselves. Our National Clinical Leads for Persistent Pain have been working with all health boards to understand the current state of persistent pain services across Wales. This includes reviewing whether the right people are being seen in the appropriate part of the health service. The outcome and subsequent recommendations from this exercise will be shared with health boards to explore what can be done to improve pain services across Wales and ensure people who require care can be seen in a timelier and more efficient manner.

Going forward, the Persistent Pain Operational Delivery Network will support health boards to implement the recommendations in the document as part of the NHS Executive’s new clinical network arrangements. We will also create a People’s Panel for Persistent Pain to capture people’s lived experiences and develop educational packages for healthcare professionals to inform future delivery of persistent pain services in Wales.