Many pain clinics in England and Wales fall well below the minimum requirements for an effective multidisciplinary pain service, the first national pain audit has concluded.1

The audit was commissioned by the Health Quality Improvement Partnership in response to the chief medical officer for England’s report Pain: Breaking through the Barrier.2 The audit found high variation in patients’ access to multidisciplinary care—considered to be the essential requirement for specialist chronic pain services. Waiting times and access to key skills of multidisciplinary team members also varied considerably.

The three year study, carried out by the British Pain Society and the healthcare …