Rethinking Pain: One Year Celebration Event

The Rethinking Pain service connect a person’s clinical care with holistic, community-based ‘whole person’ support that offers alternatives to medications and clinical treatments alone so that people are better equipped to manage their pain. On 9 November 2023, our Pain Research Team took part in the Rethinking Pain one year celebration event, at the Life Church, Bradford.

The celebration provided delegates an opportunity to hear about what the Rethinking Pain service has achieved to date, ambitions for the future, and why there is national interest in this new approach to chronic pain management. Delegates came from a wide range of backgrounds including NHS clinical directors, chief executives, directors of primary care networks, directors of voluntary and community sector organisations, physicians, allied health professionals, health coaches, social prescribers, clinical researchers, and, importantly, service users. The celebration was a great opportunity to meet colleagues passionate about care for people living with long-term pain and fuelled by Bradford’s finest curry and cake.

The series of formal talks included members of the Rethinking Pain team explaining how the service was designed and delivered including their hopes for the future. There were some powerful videos of the views of people who had used the service. Mark (Prof. Mark Johnson) talked about the need for society to think about pain being much more than a nervous system response to tissue damage and that modern living may be hindering recovery from pain. Kate (Dr Kate Thompson) explained how the Beckett Pain Team would use a Theory of Change approach as part of our independent evaluation of the Rethinking Pain service and drew attention to an article that we have already published that contextualises the Rethinking Pain service within the NHS long-term plan. Ghazala (Dr Ghazala Tabasam) spoke passionately about how service users value the importance of faith, beliefs and spirituality in approaches used to manage pain, and how Rethinking Pain is culturally adapting their approach to align with the needs of Bradford residents.

Rethinking Pain is the first of its kind by shifting from a therapy-led service to a voluntary and community sector led service. It is hoped that this will empower people with the tools and skills they need to live healthy lives with, and without, pain, by reconnecting them to social support networks within their community. It is an incredibly exciting project for the Beckett Pain Team because of the potential for this new model of care to be rolled out across the UK and beyond!