Pain Management Programme

Summary of Brief:

OSP teamed up with Hywel Dda University Health Board to research, protype, test and develop, and deploy a bilingual (Welsh and English) digital Pain Management Programme (PMP), made up of 10 modules. The aim of the programme is to reduce the burden on patients living with persistent pain.

What we did:

• Mapped the existing client pathway to find our starting point, exploring patient challenges before coming up with a digital solution that was fit for purpose.
• Considered:
  • Useability – These patients are living with persistent pain, and this can cloud their concentration and restrict their movement. The PMP needed to be easy-to-use, physically accessible (in rural Wales, patients may not be able to physically get to a face-to-face course), accessible for disabilities, engaging, informative and bitesize.
  • Pros and cons of digital – Would all the target patients be able to access the online PMP? We decided it was best to give patients the option to take part either in the face-to-face or digital workshop or, if they wish, participate in a combination of the two. We also wanted to allow for people with poor WiFi, which is another very common problem in rural Wales, so we made sure the files could be downloaded.
  • Developing a Learning Management System (LMS) to house the modules – The NHS was unable to provide ongoing funding to pay for an annual subscription, so we developed a low cost, custom LMS to house the modules using Moodle, which featured a basic annual fee.
  • Content – We wanted to make the modules as engaging as possible and also apply the learning principles to ensure it was as accessible as possible too so we used Articulate 360 to allow us to create custom eLearning.
  • Language – Wales is a bilingual country and, whilst for the most part, English is the first language, for many Welsh is the preferred and sometimes only language a patient may understand. It was therefore important to create a programme that was designed as Welsh first. This approach also ensured there is the potential to expand the PMP to cover multiple languages in the future – a simple process when using the translation tools in Articulate 360.
• Created a course of 10 modules that include more than 20 video exercises, audio and visual advice and prompts, audio relaxation tracks, interactive elements to better understand the content, simple easy-to-read content, and engaging illustrations and design throughout.
• Developed additional resources that patients can download and refer to with extra information and exercises included within them.

Currently ongoing and in patient testing, this programme will be the first of its kind in Wales and is being delivered in close collaboration between the OSP team and pain management clinicians.