Chronic pain waiting times
Quarter ending 30 September 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on the length of time patients waited for a first appointment with a pain management service. These services provide chronic pain assessment and management and are delivered by multi-disciplinary teams.

Main points

• Referrals to a chronic pain clinic are now back to levels seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the quarter ending 30 September 2023, 5,220 patients were referred, an increase of 6.1% on the previous quarter, when 4,919 patients were referred. Referrals are up by 3.9% compared to a year earlier, when there were 5,026 during the quarter ending 30 September 2022.
• There were 2,005 patients seen at a consultant-led chronic pain clinic during the quarter ending 30 September 2023, compared to 1,954 in the previous quarter, an increase of 2.6%. Of these, 57.9% waited 12 weeks or less, 11.1% waited between 13 and 24 weeks, 19.3% waited between 25 and 51 weeks and 11.8% waited 52 weeks or more.
• During the last year, an average of just over 2,000 patients were seen initially at a consultant-led clinic each quarter. This is lower than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when an average of just under 3,000 patients were seen per quarter during 2019. This is largely due to some NHS Boards introducing new pathways that offer patients alternatives to being seen at a consultant-led outpatient clinic. Patients are considered as no longer waiting once they take up this offer.
• Since June 2020, the number of patients waiting has gradually increased and is now similar to the average of the quarters in 2019. At 30 September 2023, 5,170 patients were waiting for their first appointment at a chronic pain clinic. Of these, 56.3% had been waiting 12 weeks or less, 17.9% patients had been waiting between 13 and 24 weeks, 20.6% had been waiting between 25 and 51 weeks, and 5.1% had been waiting 52 weeks or more.
• Although the number of patients waiting is similar to before the COVID-19 pandemic, the proportion of patients waiting longer has increased. Most of those who have been waiting 25 weeks or more are waiting to be treated in NHS Grampian and NHS Tayside. Factors that have contributed to this are increased demand for the service and long-term staff vacancies.

Trend chart showing data from quarter ending 31 December 2015 to quarter ending 30 September 2023 with bars showing the number of patients waiting per quarter. Each bar is broken down by the length of time patients have been waiting: 12 weeks or less (darker blue bar), 13 - 24 weeks (blue bar), 25 - 51 weeks (paler blue bar), and 52+ weeks (grey bar).

Close

Distribution of wait for patients waiting at a consultant-led Chronic Pain clinic from quarter ending 31 December 2015 to 30 September 2023¹

Note 1: Data for NHS Orkney is unavailable for the quarters ending 31 December 2015 to 31 March 2016.

Background

Chronic pain is pain that carries on for longer than 12 weeks despite medication or treatment. Further information can be found on the NHS Inform website. The data presented here have been adjusted for periods of patient unavailability. Any adjustments are based on the NHSScotland Waiting Times Guidance. After being temporarily paused in March 2020, chronic pain services started to resume in June as part of the planned remobilisation of services. In September 2020, a Framework for Recovery of NHS Pain Management Services was published with further guidance on the resumption and continuation of services.

For the NHS Boards who submit data on pain psychology clinics, further detail is available in the data tables and the publication report.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 12 March 2024.