Meeting of the Parliament 16 November 2022
Musculoskeletal conditions and chronic pain are among the most common long-standing illnesses in Scotland. More than 29 per cent of the population, or 1.5 million people, have such a condition—myself included. Before I say anything else, I therefore put on the record my sincere thanks to all the incredible NHS staff for the support that they have given me throughout my life, and which they provide me with now: doctors, rheumatologists, nurses, podiatrists, physios and more, many of whom I see weekly—you all know who you are.
I also thank the third sector organisations and cross-party groups on arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions, and chronic pain, for their work to raise awareness of the conditions and for representing the views of people who are living with them.
Living in chronic pain is constant, pervasive, tiring, distracting and, sometimes, depressing. It often means a strong cocktail of painkillers, some self-care—for those of us who listen to our own advice—and, often, medical interventions. All of those are essential—miss out on one when you need it, and it can all get too much.
Living in pain is like having a whole other job with many moving parts to it. You must plan for it, anticipate it, take time off work for it and, often, work around it. Things can all get overwhelming. I am not exaggerating when I say that there are days when I cannot see through the pain. Keeping going, especially in this job, is sometimes the only option, but that comes at a cost. I make choices every day about how to manage my pain and my time, and it can be tiring. Those decisions take time and energy, but, like the millions of other people in pain in Scotland today, I make them and move on.
When pain is managed, the need for such considerations is reduced, which gives us space to think about the job that we are doing, the things that we want to do and the people we want to spend our time with. Addressing chronic pain is necessary not only to end suffering, but to help to free up the brains and minds of those of us who live with it so that we can contribute to society and lead an ordinary life.
That is why I am not simply disappointed, but angry, that services to help people who are living in chronic pain are on their knees. By letting the current crisis continue for as long as it has, with no signs that it is ending, the Government has let staff and patients down. The crisis has gone on for far too long. Last June, 3,853 patients were waiting for their first appointment at a chronic pain clinic. That represents a 20.9 per cent increase since March this year, and a 46.9 per cent increase since June 2021.
People in chronic pain in Scotland are being left in agony for years and are missing out on essential interventions. As my colleague Monica Lennon said, many people who need regular injections have not had them, and others do not know what will work because they are stuck in a cycle of gatekeeping and barriers, which means that there are nowhere near finding solutions that will work for them. Some people lose their jobs, while some can no longer go out as much as they used to. They lose friends and their relationships change, as my colleague Christine Grahame said, as do habits and hobbies.
As someone who believes that people know their own body, I believe that self-management is important, and Labour members welcome the new framework. However, I say to the Government that that cannot come at the expense of any other intervention. People cannot move on without vital support, but instead of being seen, they are being asked to follow programmes of self-management that are often inappropriate, as Jackie Baillie mentioned. Help for their pain is seen as elective, as though they have a choice, so it is fine for them to wait. They are deprioritised, moved to the end of the list and given a checklist of things that they can do to help themselves, and they are left like that for years.
When waiting times are in years, not months, can the Government really argue that any other interventions are actually available? A right to healthcare that never comes is, in effect, no right at all.
The experience of one of my Glasgow constituents lays all of that bare. Despite explaining that his pain is so debilitating that he has had to give up some work, is becoming increasingly disabled, has had to give up things that he used to enjoy and had to cancel trips out with friends, he has waited for more than two years for essential pain treatment. He has been on and off waiting lists, passed from department to department and told that he was not a priority. He was even told that the length of time that he had had to wait was not as long as he thought it was, because of trickery with numbers that meant that his repeat appointments were not being recorded.
I raised that issue with the cabinet secretary last year and asked that targets and reporting be changed so that they reflected real life experiences, rather than clever counting that hides years of pain. I would appreciate a commitment that the Government will address that when the minister closes the debate.
My constituent eventually got a cancellation and was asked to attend an appointment at short notice. When he got there, he was met by worn-out and stressed staff. He was told by one exhausted nurse that the clinic had been cancelled several times. The system is working for no one—that is the case for patients and staff alike. To add insult to injury, my constituent was then told that he had to schedule his own appointments via a phone number that was never answered. I ask the minister: is he to conclude anything other than that the process itself is designed to gatekeep?
I reiterate that living in chronic pain is a full-time job. The last thing that patients need is having to do an admin job, too. That is really self-management in the extreme. My constituent is angry, he misses the activity that he used to do, he is frustrated because he is waiting for answers and, like many people who are living with degenerative chronic pain, he is constantly readjusting, mentally and physically, to a new normal or worrying about what the next new normal will look like.
Of course, the Government has claimed that the experience of people such as my constituent is a result of Covid, but the situation is not new; it is the result of an understaffed and underresourced NHS that went into the pandemic fighting for its life while being tasked with fighting for ours.
The resilience of my constituent is remarkable, as is often the case with people who live in chronic pain. However, his life—as is the case for many people—is unrecognisable. He has lost work and missed opportunities as a result of spending days on end fighting. He is not alone—everyone in the chamber will have a similar story to tell.
The SNP must step up and take action. It must work with patients to sort out the situation and improve treatment and wellbeing. It must protect specialist chronic pain services, give them the support that they need to do their job, provide greater transparency around waiting times for return patients and end the needless system of passing the burden of admin on to patients. The Government cannot take pain away, but it can certainly take action to stop adding to it.