Pain Management Task Force minutes: August 2022

Attendees and apologies

Nicci Motiang, Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement (acting Chair)
Lois Lobban, Senior Policy Manager, Rehabilitation
Louise McInnes, National Implementation Lead, Chronic Pain
Rory Mackenzie, Interim Deputy Clinical Director, Centre for Sustainable Delivery
Stephen Martin, Unit Head, Realistic Medicine
Helen Moores-Poole, Allied Health Professions Advisor, Primary Care
James O’Malley, Senior Policy Manager, Chronic Pain
Jed Quinn, Internship Programme (SDIP), Clinical Priorities
Sharon Robertson, Policy Manager, Chronic Pain

Apologies received from:    
Lynne Nicol, Deputy Director of Planning and Quality (Chair)
Claire Mellor, Unit Head, Clinical Priorities
Moira Nelson, Team Leader, Chronic Pain and Endometriosis
Liam Gray, Policy Manager, Chronic Pain
Nicola Rhind, National Clinical Lead, Chronic Pain

Items and actions

Welcome and apologies

The Chair welcomed all attendees and noted the apologies received.

Approval of minutes of last meeting and actions

The Minutes were agreed and formalised.

The task force were asked to note that the most of the actions from the last meeting have been completed. The terms of reference for Short Life Working Group A (SLWGA) and the Education Network had been updated as discussed at previous meeting and were now ratified. 

Caroline Labinjoh, Realistic Medicine Clinical Advisor has agreed to join SLWG A and Task Force thereafter.

Linda Tripney, NES Healthcare Support Worker rep has agreed to be on membership of the Education Group. 

Paediatric Complex Pain will be taken at next meeting. National Clinical Lead to prepare a paper for the task force.

• action– National Clinical Lead to prepare paper for the October meeting 

Framework launch update

The task force were asked to note the three main pieces of activity going forward. 

Government led debate (Autumn 2022) – an update is due shortly which will allow the policy team to look at resources and capacity within the Unit to produce the Ministerial briefing pack, speeches etc. Awaiting confirmation of date.

The Cabinet Secretary is to meet with the MSPs of the Cross Party Group on Chronic Pain before the debate.

The Health and Socialcare Alliance (the ALLIANCE) are planning on holding a public facing online session to raise awareness of the Framework with support from policy officials. Date still to be decided.

The Unit Head of the Realistic Medicine team advised he is happy to provide support by inputting into briefing pack etc.

Implementation Progress

Year 1 Implementation Plan

The task force were asked to note the updates made to tracker where progress will be logged going forward. A link will be shared after the meeting to allow them to provide comments. 

• action 1 – SLWGA -  A potential chair for this has been identified subject to an approved serivce level agreement (SLA). Once in place, meetings will be scheduled from October onwards. 
• action 2 - NHS24 User Needs Assessment

The task force were asked to note that NHS24 were no longer able to undertake a user needs assessment due to capacity issues. The task force discussed the three proposed options to proceed with the Action, and agreed option B (engage the Pain Panel to carry out the user research) was the most appropriate course of action, noting the points below for policy officials to action: 

• formally document what support was being offered by NHS24 to help with the project
• scope the capability of  The Lines Between to deliver the user research project
• clarify what measures are in place to mitigate any risks including to budget, other deliverables etc
• ensure any outcomes would be in a suitable format for NHS24 to use to instruct NHS Inform
• contact SG Digital to explore their capacity to support user research

An update on the progress will be provided by email to the task force.

The task force were asked to note one of the successes. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has agreed to host the education provision for healthcare staff on Turas platform (Action 3 in the Implementation Plan). There will be not costs associated with this. 

• action– Implementation Lead to share link to spreadsheet
• action– policy team  to share update on the user needs assessment  

Stakeholder Involvement

Pain Management Patient Panel update

The task force were asked to note that recruitment of people with lived experience to the panel was underway and a trial session was taking place on 19 August. It is expected that the first meetings will take place w/c 22 August using guidance and information sheets that Scottish Government are currently commenting on.

Policy officials were asked to ensure that the spread of panel membership was representative of people with chronic pain to guarantee that the output was as useful as possible. It was clarified that the views of carers are being included as part of the Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) exercise (see below) and the recruitment criteria for the pain panel had been informed by best available data on those groups most impacted by chronic pain and facing inequalities.

Action 7 - Healthcare Improvement Scotland – gathering views

The task force were asked to note that recruitment was underway and early sessions have taken place. The report is expected 4 November.

Action 5 - Third Sector Network

The task force was asked to note an initial discussion had taken place with a potential candidate to chair the Network. If a SLA is agreed, then it is expected that the first meeting would be in October 2022.

Communications strategy

The task force were asked to note the communications strategy. The Chair highlighted that the SDIP Intern was currently working on the inaugural issue of the quarterly chronic pain newsletter as well as proposed infographics

The Chair advised that she has moved onto another role in the Division but would retain oversight of the communications work. The Team Leader – Chronic Pain and Endometriosis will provide support.

It was noted that there were likely to be challenges with engagement of healthcare professionals on the implementation plan and actions going forward especially with winter pressures or competing priorities. Policy officials confirmed they were considering this and any potential actions required to address this risk.

It was agreed that a meeting would be scheduled to discuss the upcoming North British Pain Association (NBPA) meeting in September at which CfSD and the National Clinical Lead are scheduled to speak. 

• action– Senior Policy Manager to arrange  meeting 

Any other competent business     

Finance and commissioning

The task force were asked to note that a finance and commissioning papers will be circulated in the next couple of weeks. Budgets have been agreed so the actions on the SLAs can be progressed within the next three weeks

Public Health Scotland Representative

A new team has been established in Public Health Scotland to look at public health priorities of chronic conditions, with initial named priorities of Type 2 Diabetes, women’s health (including endometriosis) and chronic pain.

It is proposed that a representative from Public Health Scotland will be added to the membership of the task force going forward. This was agreed.

A link to the Public Health Framework for Allied Healthcare Practitioners was shared with the group.

• action– Team Leader to prepare finance paper and share via email 

Proposed September 2022 meeting cancellation

The Implementation Lead proposed that September’s meeting was cancelled to ensure the policy team had sufficient capacity to support the debate. It was also noted as the SLAs were still be agreed there would not be significant progress to report across September. 

Updates on progress will be provided via email. 

• action – Implementation Lead to cancel the September meeting 
• action– Implementation Lead to commission progress reports for the task force 

Date of next meeting

Wednesday 26 October 2022