More about the Chronic Pain HIT

Chronic pain affects between one third and one half of the UK population and is defined as pain lasting more than three months.

Chronic pain:

• leads to 4.6 million GP visits per annum
• has significant economic impact due to health resources used and work absenteeism
• has significant personal impact on an individual’s quality of life

The most common chronic pain conditions include; non-specific low back pain, regional joint pain, neuropathic pain and widespread musculoskeletal pain/fibromyalgia. People with chronic pain commonly experience poor response to current treatments, may be very disabled, and their care is primarily focused on self-management of persistent pain.

The challenge is to support those who live with chronic pain and those who provide chronic pain services or care.

Aims and objectives

The vision of the Chronic Pain Health Integration Team is that everyone living with chronic pain in our community has access to the support they need.

Our mission is to ensure people living with chronic pain in our region will have:

• equal access to timely, evidence-based information
• support from appropriately trained health and social practitioners
• access to participate in research studies that further build the evidence base

and to ensure people outside of our HIT, including commissioners and policy makers will be aware of the personal and societal impact of chronic pain and the work of our HIT.

Getting involved

The Chronic Pain HIT is keen to hear from anyone with an interest in Chronic Pain. Our membership represents a broad range of healthcare providers, professions and service users.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you want to know more about our work or are interested in joining our HIT.

Please contact us at: chronicpainhit@bristolhealthpartners.org.uk

Integrated Pain Management at the HIT conference

The IPM HIT presented this poster (PDF) at the 2018 Bristol Health Partners Health Integration Team conference.