Macmillan Press Release "Thousands of cancer patients are spending their final hours in pain"

14th Mar 2016

The British Pain Society has prepared the attached comment to the Macmillan press release "Thousands of cancer patients are spending their final hours in pain" http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Aboutus/News/Latest_News/Thousandsofcancerpatientsarespendingtheirfinalhoursinpain1.aspx 

Key messages from the full comment are:

1.       Managing pain in cancer patients is often challenging and various studies over the past ten years have demonstrated that nearly two-thirds suffer from poorly controlled moderate to severe pain; it has also been identified that more than 70% of patients do not get timely access to the level of expertise they need.

2.       The British Pain Society document on Cancer pain published in 2010 highlighted the ineffectiveness of the outmoded opioid-based WHO pain ladder model from 1986 to the need for moving towards a multimodal, multidisciplinary collaborative working between oncologists, pain clinicians, palliative medicine and primary care adopting the full range of pain management techniques to alleviate the suffering of cancer pain.

3.       The British Pain Society supports this initiative from the Macmillan Cancer Support and we endorse the view expressed by its Chief Executive, that people should not spend their final days suffering due to pain.  We welcome the opportunity to share our our multidiscplinary expertise in managing complex pain in cancer patients in all settings.