Pain Management Task Force minutes: June 2022

Attendees and apologies

• Lynne Nicol, Deputy Director of Planning and Quality (Chair)
• Bette Locke, Lead AHP, Rehabilitation 
• Claire Mellor, Unit Head, Clinical Priorities
• Helen Moores-Poole, AHP Advisor, Primary Care
• James O’Malley, Senior Policy Manager, Chronic Pain
• Liam Gray, Policy Manager, Chronic Pain
• Lois Lobban, Senior Policy Manager, Rehabilitation
• Louise McInnes, National Implementation Lead, Chronic Pain            
• Moira Nelson, Team Lead, Chronic Pain and Endometriosis
• Nicola Rhind, National Clinical Lead, Chronic Pain    
• Rory Mackenzie, Interim Deputy Clinical Director, Centre for Sustainable Delivery 
• Stephen Martin, Unit Head, Realistic Medicine

Items and actions

Welcome and apologies

The Chair welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the Pain Management Task Force.  Apologies were received from Nicci Motiang, Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement, and Sharon Robertson, Policy Manager, Chronic Pain. It was noted that item E Communications strategy would be transferred to 20 July 2022 meeting.

Draft terms of reference

A paper was submitted requesting the task force to agree:

• terms of feference

• Deputy Chair

• quorate

• standard agenda

Clarification was made that links between the Task Force and various healthcare professional groups involved in pain management service delivery were facilitated by the National Clinical Lead.

The terms of reference were accepted with the following amendments:

• role and key tasks to include agreement on the prioritisation of the work programme to implement the framework, considering the wider financial and policy landscape within Scottish Government

•  “agree on spending in relation to implementation of the framework” to be amended to “consider and make recommendations to the Scottish Government on the utilisation of the chronic pain budget to support implementation of the framework”

• include the governance structure in the Terms of Reference to demonstrate the links between Scottish Government, Task Force and clinical networks

• Deputy Chair was agreed as Claire Mellor, Unit Head, Clinical Priorities

• quorate agreed as either Chair / Deputy Chair and 50% membership (7 people)

• standard agenda was agreed

Finance and commissioning

A paper was submitted requesting the task force to:

• review and approve the proposed financial commitments in order to implement the Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery (the Framework)

• consider the use of service level agreements (SLAs) to ensure clinical input and leadership is secured to support implementation of the Framework

• update on commissioning the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to deliver some Framework commitments.

Financial commitments were noted and current funding arrangements with National Services Division (NSD) for the Scottish National Residential Pain Management Programme were discussed. 

The task torce agreed in principle that SLAs are required to support and protect clinicians time to be involved with chairing short life working groups and attend the task force to report on progress. The figures and time required should be further developed to give a more accurate picture of the finance required to support the SLAs.

There are ongoing financial discussions within Clinical Priorities linked to Scottish Government Resource Spending Review that will be considered at the next meeting of the task force.    

Framework launch update

A paper was submitted providing an update on the framework launch and timeframe to publication. Good progress has been made to date and Ministers have agreed to publication during recess. 

Stakeholder involvement

A paper was submitted detailing the Health Improvement Scotland (HIS) Gathering Views exercise which has been confirmed to take place in July 2022 with output report summarising findings due in September 2022.

In addition a National Pain Management Panel will be convened to support delivery of Aim A, as a pilot, during July 2022. 

The task force will receive reports on the progress with the patient engagement activities and the standard report from the short life working groups will include reporting on how they have engaged with all stakeholders.

Risk register

A paper was submitted requesting the Task Force to:

• Agree the risks and current risk score

• Agree the escalation threshold of risk from the task force to Directorate risk register

• Agree the risk appetite

The draft risks were accepted with the following changes:

• Id 2:  financial risk – current likelihood to be increased to 4, with an overall rating of 100, due to the current financial reviews within Scottish Government

The task force agreed that as work to mitigate the two risks with the highest rating (ID 1 and ID 10) was actively being carried out, there was no specific ask by escalating these to Ministers, however they should be closely monitored over the coming months to ensure adequate progress.        

The task force agreed with a risk appetite of:

• medium / cautious: Willingness to accept a degree of risk in order to achieve key delivery objectivesl, particularly where the opportunity of significant gains has been identified, inherent risk is deemed controllable to a large extent.  This will be reviewed in November / December 2022.

These risks are noted to be directly linked to agenda items to ensure that risk is driving the implementation. 

Any other competent business

There was no other competent business items for discussion.

Date of next meeting

20 July 2022 at 10 am via MS Teams.