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Increased pain management support for GPs and patients
The National Strategic Action Plan for Pain Management offers a boost in training for GPs, as well as additional funding support through Medicare.
The National Strategic Action Plan for Pain Management offers a coordinated nationwide approach to chronic pain, as well as additional training and support for GPs and other health professionals.
The Department of Health this week released the National strategic action plan for pain management (the plan), outlining the blueprint for a three-year plan to address the issues faced by the 3.24 million Australians experiencing chronic pain.
As a part of this mission, there is a strong focus on education and support for GPs.
‘What we are really seeking is better training and education for GPs, and better options for GPs for referral to allied health specialists like psychologists, physiotherapists [and] nutritionists, which is really best practice care for people with pain conditions,’ Carol Bennett, Chief Executive of Painaustralia, the peak national body behind the plan’s development, told 4BC Drive.
The plan’s focus on GPs is extremely pertinent, as one in five GP consultations involve patients experiencing issues with pain.
‘As providers of day-to-day care to the community, GPs are right on the frontline of pain management,’ RACGP President, Dr Harry Nespolon, told newsGP.
‘The RACGP welcomes additional training and resourcing for GPs in this area and is supportive of the new strategic plan.’
The plan suggests a broad, overarching national education strategy and assessment model for health professionals, based a biopsychosocial or sociopsychobiomedical framework. This education will be supported by national clinical guidelines on pain for health providers.
It also recommends additional, targeted funding through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS). For example, the introduction of an MBS item specific to GPs who have a specialist qualification in pain medicine as a Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine.
Also recommended is the recognition of pain as a complex condition that is eligible for a Medicare supported pain management plan, offering access to 10 individual services and 10 group services per calendar year.
Dr Milana Votrubec, Chair of the RACGP Pain Management Specific Interests network, supports the concept of more pain management education for GPs, and in favour of any initiative that may allow them to spend extra time with patients on these issues, as their needs are often complex.
‘You have to allocate the time. Just as you allocate time for a patient who’s got complex health issues, pain is no different,’ Dr Votrubec told newsGP.
‘The take-home message for GPs has to be the ability to spend the time with that patient … take the time to hear their patient’s pain story in order to focus on achievable goals.’
Another focus of the plan is reduction of patient reliance on opioids and other forms of pain medication, with an emphasis instead on treatment options such as exercise and psychology.
Dr Nespolon agrees that reducing dependence on medication is a positive move for patients.
‘While the desire for a simple treatment option in the form of a pill is understandable, we now know that opioids and other forms of medication can end up being more harmful than helpful,’ he said.
‘Prescribing medications still remains an important part of pain management for the appropriate patient, but non-drug treatments such as physical exercise as part of a comprehensive care plan are often more effective and have more lasting positive effects on a patient’s quality of life.’
The plan must be endorsed by the state and territory health ministers before it can be implemented.
Ms Bennett believes that if pain management processes do not change, there will be significant consequences for Australia – not least, financially, with the costs of chronic pain estimated at $139.3 billion per year and projected to rise to $205.6 billion by 2050.
‘That increase will happen if we don’t do something about this issue,’ she said. ‘We know it has this huge cost impost in health, in social, in economic terms. So we can’t afford to do nothing about this.’
Dr Votrubec is hopeful that a coordinated national response to pain management will be put into place and that it will herald a change in the way health professionals are trained to manage the issue.
‘[We need] to direct our attention to the patient as much as to the GP, and have a groundswell of people who are cognisant of chronic pain not indicating harm as much as it is causing them psychological harm,’ she said.
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