Q Exchange
A Platform for Pain; A community resource for persistent pain
- Proposal
- 2020
What is the positive change that has emerged through new collaborations or partnerships during Covid-19 that your project is going to embed?
The advent of MS teams ‘suddenly’ enabled a broader range of professionals to come together ‘around the patient’ in the Enfield Community Pain Service. Previously it was difficult to get representatives from different care streams to multi-disciplinary team meetings due to travel restrictions. However since Covid-19 MS teams has enabled partners from Mental Health Teams, Social Care and community organisations such as Inclusion Barnet to come together for higher quality, case based conversations. This has been highly valued by all partners. Education of our partners about what is most helpful in persistent pain has been accelerated and as a healthcare team we have been able to have a faster grasp of what other services may have to offer our patients. This change has meant better solutions overall around complex cases.
What does your project aim to achieve?
The change we would like to work further on is an aspiration to develop the ‘Pain Platform’, which we see as being a ‘virtual’ local community hub for patients in Enfield with persistent pain. This would compliment the MS teams conversations and build on the emergent partnerships. The ‘virtual hub’ could be used by all stakeholders as a community ‘anchor’ a ‘place to go’ for information and ideas for all parties, on line community chats, community information and would enable us to add collaborators into the community as we go along, building a real time, up to date pain community in Enfield.
How will the project be delivered?
The project will be overseen and governance provided by BEH Mental Health Trust Enfield Community Pain Team. This multi-disciplinary team currently provides evidence based multi-disciplinary interventions for people with persistent pain in Enfield, according to national guidelines. The pain team will advise on and monitor the content of the platform. A steering group of health, mental health, social care, community partners, service users and carers will be formed to guide the design and execution of building the platofrm. Support from the QI Faculty at BEH will be given to design tests of change and overall quality of the project. The project will also be supported by an Assistant Psychologist in the team.
How is your project going to share learning?
The project could be shared with other Pain management services nationally who would also benefit from a ‘Pain Platform’ . The project will share learning specifically from the process of employing a virtual platform as a way of community building. This will be tested as a vehicle to develop a rich repository of resources for pain in the local community, building ‘place based’ care and doing this in such a way that support networks can be maintained even in future ‘lockdown’ conditions. The project will track how the Pain Platform facilitated conversations and partnerships which helped to deliver care with the right complexity to patients who need help from health and social care and resources that are very much embedded in their communities e.g opportunities for exercise or community based learning.
How you can contribute
- Help with experience of building a virtual platform
- Help with experience of integrating physical and mental health (QLab 2019)
- Help with experience of co-design
- Help with designing place based care
Plan timeline
| 1 Feb 2021 | Form steering group, Project Team and project plan |
|---|---|
| 1 Mar 2021 | Draft content & IT consult |
| 1 Apr 2021 | Finalise content |
| 1 Jun 2021 | Go live with tests change |
Comments
Peter Dudgeon 16 Oct 2020
Hi Anna,
Myself and Emma Adams are supporting the Health Foundation this year by fostering conversations between Q members and encouraging collaboration. We were Exchange applicants last year, so we’re hoping that our experience can help others, as their ideas progress.
It struck me, reading your idea, that it might be worth exploring what Facebook groups already exist, to identify the any gaps that your idea might address. There is one called, Pain Management with 3.9K members and one called Chronic Pain Survivors UK with 9.3K members. I wondered if there were specific advantages to a regional platform that such national/international platforms cannot provide?
Best of luck with your idea.
Pete
Anna Mandeville 19 Oct 2020
Thanks for your comments Pete. I think a regional site would progress the agenda of providing place based, local information and care - this isn't available on a wider national platform. We envisage it as being very interactive at a community level and a portal for a peer support worker conversations and a tool to signpost people. We also envisage growing local links via the site e.g listing local cafes/ gyms/ exercise classes that are 'persistent pain friendly' and badged as such with a 'Persistent Pain watermark' and similar.
Tracy Webb 16 Oct 2020
Hi Anna. I just wondered if you'd seen the resources from Q Lab about persistent back and neck pain and mental health. If not, they may be of interest https://qlabessays.health.org.uk/
Anna Mandeville 19 Oct 2020
Thanks Tracey yes the lab was really useful and I attended one of the workshops
Tamar Wildwing 30 Sep 2020
This is a really interesting idea. I am undertaking a PhD into GPs' role in chronic pain management, looking at barriers and facilitators. One issue is that pain clinics, at times, do not complement what GPs are trying to achieve. Also it seems that pain clinic group sessions try to offer one approach to all patients, meaning some get a lot from the sessions, others get little because they are at different stages in their acceptance of their pain, or have differing levels of health literacy. I also agree that the dualism issues need addressing.
Anna Mandeville 19 Oct 2020
Thanks for this comment. I agree there's lots of work to be done providing interventions in primary care which complement what is available in secondary care. Group offers are efficient and help to provide peer support. They can be very powerful and motivating, particularly with peer workers involved. We now have a fully funded peer worker post and plan to set up more - probably in a part time manner and also volunteers. Local webinars could be offered to GP practices to introduce patients to pain management at this level and allow peer workers to inspire people with their experiences. This introduction would be backed up by the local platform we would like to develop with information about managing pain and a local network of community support for people with persistent pain
William Bostock 22 Sep 2020
Hi. This sounds like a great project.
I have been working on the integration of mental and physical health. I think directly addressing health beliefs is essential to make progress in this area, otherwise we inevitable become ensnared in Cartesian dualism.
I have been developing a “ground up” resource, trying to build a solid foundation from which to work by examining deep seated societal health beliefs that may be part of the problem. If we want to truly integrate mental and physical health, we first need to re-examine our understanding of what it means to be healthy.
I would be interested in discussing this further and how it might tie in with your work on the platform for pain. If the aim is to co-create conversations, I guess it will be important that they are the “right” conversations!
Anna Mandeville 22 Sep 2020
HI William
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I agree with your perspective. I agree that dualism should really be 'dead' but its very much alive. Another interesting perspective is that we have not really been brought up as 'co-creators' of our own health - we often see ourselves as rather passive recipients. With medics 'in charge'. Changing that belief is psychologically and physically liberating. Be happy to have a 'real life' conversation if you want to email me directly anna.mandeville1@nhs.net
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