NEWS
Specialists seek to improve pain management skills of all staff By Kat Keogh The RCN’s pain and palliative care forum will next week hold a summit with specialist pain nurses and academics to look at ways of improving the pain management skills of nurses. The college is concerned that many nurses, working across all settings, lack confidence when treating patients who have chronic pain. The pain and palliative care forum’s committee says that non-specialist nurses are hampered by a lack of training on how to provide effective care for chronic pain, which affects around ten million people in the UK. The summit will be chaired by Glasgow Caledonian University nursing academic Nick Allcock, who has carried out research into pain assessment and management, and aims to identify gaps in existing training and tools.
Service variation
The meeting follows a national audit published last week by the British Pain Society, which warns of ‘too much variation’ in the quality of chronic pain services across England and Wales. Pain forum member and nurse consultant Helen Taylor said that while a number of good short courses
and learning tools exist, all nurses and healthcare assistants need access to pain management training. She added: ‘The RCN has become increasingly aware of the lack of confidence that many non-specialist nurses have in assessing pain and in providing effective strategies to reduce unrelieved pain. ‘Chronic pain will be found in patients across all care settings, so
‘NoN-SPEcIAlISTS hAvE ThE PoTENTIAl To BEcomE ESSENTIAl IN hElPING PATIENTS WITh chRoNIc PAIN’ – Cathy Price education about pain assessment and management is key for all health professionals.’ The British Pain Society carried out a four-year study looking at the availability of services to diagnose and manage chronic pain conditions. The resulting National Pain Audit report says that information for patients on coping with chronic pain is unclear at times. A survey of 1,700 people with chronic pain, undertaken as part of the study, reveals that 16 per cent have been admitted to hospital in
the past six months because of their condition. A third said pain prevented them from working or actively seeking employment.
Pre-reg courses
The number of specialist clinics needed to be increased, the report adds, while worryingly low numbers of non-English people were accessing pain services. Report clinical leader Cathy Price told Nursing Standard that a lack of support and treatment could contribute to an already poor quality of life for patients. National competencies in pain management needed to be developed for registered nurses, and chronic pain should be part of pre-registration nursing courses, she added. Ms Price said: ‘Non-specialist nurses have the potential to become an essential part of the workforce in helping patients with chronic pain, but the lack of competencies to refer to puts them in a very difficult position. ‘The audit shows that without competencies, you end up with huge variation in practice and inconsistent advice for patients who may have a poor quality of life.’ To read the report, go to: tinyurl.com/pain-audit-report
cash-strapped Barts to lay off and downband hundreds of nurses More than 100 nursing posts at the UK’s largest NHS organisation will be cut in the run-up to Christmas, and hundreds more downbanded, in a bid to save £77 million by March 2014. Barts Health NHS Trust in London last week confirmed 463 nursing posts will be downbanded. Among them will be 198 band 6 nurses rebanded at band 5. Barts owes large sums as part of a private finance initiative agreement
relating to its Royal Hospital site in Whitechapel, east London. RCN London regional director Bernell Bussue said: ‘The cuts at Barts are being pushed through to save as much money as possible and the result is patients will be put at risk. Barts has already been criticised by the Care Quality Commission for being short-staffed.’ The trust carried out a consultation on the proposals between August and
October. In their response, the RCN and other unions warned that staff had been left ‘angry, demoralised and distressed’ by the proposals. A trust spokesperson insisted that patient safety would not be compromised. She added that downbanded staff would be given pay protection for 18 months and the trust is putting in place a team to help downbanded staff find a role at their original banding.
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