A Pain in the Pilot

Multi-agency guidelines recommend use of a functional pain assessment tool as an objective assessment of pain, rather than relying on a subjective verbal rating scale. This project was created to address issues managing Patients’ pain in inpatient settings. The project aimed to answer: ‘How can we adopt the use of a Functional Pain Assessment into our clinical practice, optimising its effectiveness for ALL patient groups in our inpatient ward areas?’ Output from multi-disciplinary working group: two electronic documents were created - Pain Assessment Tool and Pain Observations Chart: for staff to document routine pain observations. Five wards participated in the pilot study, with training/support provided. Result: Staff and patients preferred the new approach, compared to previous pain documentation method. However, documentation compliance was not as good as expected. Pilot proved the concept, documents are effective in pain management, but more education and support is needed to embed cultural shift.