BPS response to NICE Low Back Pain and Sciatica

5th Dec 2016

The British Pain Society welcomes the new NICE clinical guideline on the management of Low Back Pain with or without Sciatica. We commend the guideline development group on collating and reviewing a vast amount of evidence and making recommendations covering diagnosis, investigations and management for low back pain and sciatica.

We are encouraged by the continued emphasis on a multidisciplinary (bio-psycho-social) approach to pain management, with early assessment and stratifying patients into groups with differing risks of developing ongoing problems to target treatments and resources appropriately. We hope the guideline will support clinicians to make important decisions about specific investigations and/or treatments using a patient-centred approach.

The British Pain Society represents all practitioners in the multidisciplinary pain team and has a central role in advancing pain awareness and practice in the NHS. We are happy to help disseminate and implement the new guideline; and we are proud to remain a NICE stakeholder and contributor to this and other NICE guidelines relating to pain in all aspects of British healthcare.