Airing Pain

This edition has been funded by funded by the Health and Social Care Alliance and Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation. In 2015 Pain Concern released its report ‘Breaking barriers to self-management of chronic pain in primary care’, marking the end of the first part of its ‘Breaking Barriers’ project. Its aim was to highlight the commonly occurring barriers that patients faced during one-to-one appointments with healthcare professionals, and to advance the primary care management of chronic pain. Phase two of the project was to produce a ‘navigator tool’ to break down those barriers and prepare patients and GPs in order make the most out of their appointments. Phase two is now complete, and in this edition of Airing Pain, Paul Evans speaks to the researchers, patients, and healthcare professionals that allowed this project to happen. Reneé Blomkvist, Pain Concern’s researcher heading the project’s second phase, explains the established barrier in phase one, as well as the methodology used in pre