Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to ask for your help and support on a project we are developing for the Health Foundations Q Exchange programme. 

https://q.health.org.uk/idea/2024/pain-community-wales-bringing-together-public-private-and-third-sector/ 

The theme of the Q exchange this year is working across boundaries hence me contacting fellow members of this group. 

The basis for our application is the combining digital resources produced by the varying Health Boards for people with persistent pain into a single repository and working out how to make that repository accessible to all the people who would benefit. I’d be really interested on your thoughts on what we need to consider and if you could add your comments to the idea on the Health Foundation website that would be perfect. 

We are very aware that persistent (chronic) pain has an impact on family/carers as well as the individual themselves and as such have developed for carers that we would make available as widely as possible too. Persistent pain effects approximately 30% of the population of Wales with 1 in 8 of those people experiencing a significant impact on their life. We know that only a small percentage of those people access specialist pain services so we want to ensure that resources are available as widely as possible.

If you would like to discuss this further do get in touch. Equally if you think there may be someone in your organisation more appropriate for us to work with then please do feel free to forward this message. If you would be willing to share the link with your colleagues and ask people to comment on the idea we have generated so far that would be great.

Best wishes,
Owen Hughes
National Clinical Lead for Persistent Pain