NHS: Pain Management Services

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, pain management is very important and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for introducing this debate. I should declare an interest in that I have a daughter who has had multiple sclerosis for almost 30 years. To a degree, she has been fortunate in that she has not suffered pain. But many sufferers of multiple sclerosis suffer severe pain. Some of them have pain in their mouths—trigeminal neuralgia. In oral dental training, the trigeminal nerve is a very important nerve in the face. It is the one that we have all heard about and we all hope that people will never get trigeminal neuralgia as it is considered to be the most horrendous pain that exists and is very difficult to deal with. Although various things can be done, sometimes that involves surgery, and for someone with multiple sclerosis that is very difficult. So pain is a major issue.

Many years ago I went to the Eastman Dental Hospital to see Professor Harris. When I got there, they said, “Have you come for the pain control clinic?”. I said “No”. I had never heard of the clinic. But it was interesting that Professor Harris was doing tremendous research at the Eastman Dental Institute into pain control. He must have retired some time ago, but this work is being continued.

Someone sent me a valuable tome on trigeminal neuralgia, which I kept for years. I occasionally glanced at it, but I never really read it. I offered it to the Lords Library but was told that it was far too specialised. I eventually sent it to one of the dental training schools because it was too important to be thrown out.

Pain affects many people. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, talked about acute pain, as well as chronic pain, which is what we are dealing with now. Chronic pain can be severe pain, which is the most worrying aspect. People can manage to put up with a little unpleasantness from time to time, but severe, constant pain is terrible to endure. Apart from anything else, it is demoralising and exhausting. Pain can be a valuable warning that something is wrong, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that pain should be classified as a disease in its own right.

In 2006, I fell off one of those old buses, which I foolishly tried to hop on. It was at the lights and, unfortunately, I did not make it. I was tossed in the air and I broke one of my vertebrae, but I did not discover that for some time, although it was a little painful. By the time I was diagnosed it was too late to do anything about it surgically, but I was put on hydrotherapy, which was fantastic and dealt with the problem.

Another important point is that, often, the specialist nurses and therapists who work with these individuals pick up the pain issue and are able to refer people to the right place for pain management control.

Unfortunately, my time is up and I cannot say any more. This is a most important debate and I thank the noble Lord again.