Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reports that the number of people aged 16-34 suffering from chronic pain increased from 21 per cent to 34 per cent between 2011 and 2017, what steps they plan to take to address that increase.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has made a number of recommendations for research on managing chronic pain, including the use of psychological therapies, acupuncture and pharmacological interventions.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are collaborating with stakeholders such as Versus Arthritis to co-produce and coordinate a strategy. Versus Arthritis have been commissioned to produce a decision support tool based on NICE guidance which can help people living with pain and their clinical teams understand all evidence-based options available. Alongside this tool, NHS England and NHS Improvement will also be publishing a commissioning framework to help local services reduce opioid prescribing in summer 2021.