Scotland needs a specialist pain clinic

I’ve found a way to tackle chronic pain.

Actually, I haven’t. But bear with me it’s a shameful ruse for a good cause. If the number of Scots living with daily pain is as low as successive Scottish governments seem to think, no-one will be reading this column. But my guess is many of you are.

Not everyone has to make a Nobel Peace prize-winning effort to get up every morning though countless thousands, like disability campaigner Susan Archibald do. Countless thousands more Scots live with just about manageable pain caused by arthritis, diabetes, early MS, recovery from cancer and so on. There’s also daily pain from strained joints, stiff hips and pulled backs and with increasing weight, falling levels of exercise and lengthening lives this will become more common. Doctors can give painkillers, though strong ones can make employment impossible. Physiotherapists can help too I do a daily 30-minute stretching routine that limits pain from an arthritic back, foot and hip. That daily stretch keeps me active and painkiller-free. But if I didn’t have the cash for a terrific private sports physio I’d be in a right mess.

NHS physio appointments are great if you can thole a six-month wait for a one-off visit.

And let’s not forget the thousands who care for those living with pain and know first-hand how this four-letter word can change a personality, limit horizons and slowly take over life if you let it. I’d guess there’s a lot of pain in Scotland, and yet when Susan Archibald and veteran pain-management campaigner Dorothy Grace Elder sat before the Holyrood Petitions Committee to demand a specialist pain management centre in Scotland last week, they faced a host of questions. How much pain is all in the mind? Why don’t we have precise numbers about those with chronic pain? And how many Scots would use a specialist pain centre?

Well I’d predict a stampede.

UK Government figures estimated in 2008 that chronic pain affects 7.8 million adults and a further 70,000 children in Scotland alone. And that’s probably an under estimate. Almost no specialists exist, so there’s next to no chance of a referral and therefore no point seeing your GP unless you want a prescription for paracetamol. Perhaps the Government and NHS boards are downright scared. Coping with pain is such a massive problem, it’s easier for them to deny its existence or leave management to specialist nurses employed by fund-raising charities like Scottish MND. And that’s a terrible betrayal of stalwart Scots. Mum-of-four and former road-sweeper Susan tried to kill herself when she couldn’t cope with pain from a nerve condition doctors couldn’t diagnose. It was only her baby’s cry that stopped her and a specialist clinic that finally named the invisible battle Susan had been fighting.

She said: “When I went to the clinic, it was the first time someone listened and believed what I was saying. GPs don’t have that expertise.” Scotland currently sends patients in chronic pain on expensive trips to a specialist centre hundreds of miles away in Bath. The money spent on travel would finance a Scottish clinic indeed Wales already has its own specialist centre (with a smaller population than Scotland).

Yet 10 out of 14 Scottish health boards have no budget for treating people with chronic pain and 72 health workers are expected to cope with 35,000 patients. Do the maths. It’s scary.

Scots have tolerated epic amounts of pain but we shouldn’t grin and bear it a day longer a special Scottish pain clinic would be an excellent start.