Gap Analysis

This Gap Analysis survey was commissioned to establish the gap that exists in services across the UK as compared with the Core Standards for Pain Management Services in the UK document of the Faculty of Pain Medicine. 

We received 164 responses from 102 sites of which 97 responses were valid and were included. The majority of respondents worked in secondary care (74.23%), followed by 22.68% in tertiary care and finally 3.09% from primary care.

Overall, of all responses from the 97 respondents to the 21 standards, 58.22% of all pooled responses stated these standards were fully met, 19.65% were partially met, 15.08% were unmet with the rest being classed as ‘don’t know/didn’t answer’ (see Figure 1). No single service fully met all of the 21 standards that were investigated by the survey. 

Key messages: 

1. There is a need to establish a directory of Tier 1, 2 and 3 services within the UK
2. No standard was fully met by all pain services with large regional and national variation
3. The following areas need urgent attention across the United Kingdom:
   1. Provision of paediatric pain services
   2. Provision of cancer pain services
   3. Provision of outcome data (PROMS) to support pain services
   4. Provision of support for research and innovation to pain services
   5. Increased support of psychological services and PMP access

The full results are available in the report. 

We would like to thank all colleagues who took the time to provide us with the data which informs this report.