New draft guidance from NICE, says that a number of commonly used drug treatments for chronic primary pain have little or no evidence that they work and shouldn’t be prescribed.
The draft clinical guidelines published on 3 August 2020, looks at the assessment and management of chronic pain in over 16s.
The guidance says that patients with chronic pain, (often musculoskeletal), would benefit from a patient-centred approach and should be offered supervised group exercise programmes, some types of psychological therapy, or acupuncture.
Chiropractors already take this suggested approach with patients and the BCA have previously highlighted the issues around a dependence on pharmaceutical intervention. You can read our recent article in the National Health Executive Magazine, ‘Britain’s dependence on painkillers: what are the alternatives?’ where member Marc Sanders explains this in detail.
