Promoting Work Participation for People with Pain: The Pain-at-Work Toolkit

WEBINAR: PROMOTING WORK PARTICIPATION FOR PEOPLE WITH PAIN: THE PAIN-AT-WORK TOOLKIT

Hosted by: Professor Holly Blake

Speakers: Professor Holly Blake, Dr Wendy Chaplin, Dr Angela Thornton, Dr Melanie Narayanasamy & Victoria Abbott-Fleming

Chronic or persistent pain affects around 28 million adults in the UK, reducing quality of life and people’s ability to work or be productive at work. Sickness absence and reduced productivity costs the UK economy £73 billion per year. Access to work advice and support for people living with pain is variable. Most people with chronic pain do not receive work advice through healthcare services, and employers do not routinely provide education or support for people with chronic pain.

To address this, The Pain-at-Work Toolkit was developed in partnership with people living with chronic or persistent pain, employers, healthcare professionals, and a UK pain charity, Burning Nights CRPS Support.

In this session, we will provide an overview of why intervention is needed to support self-management of chronic pain at work. We will describe the co-creation and evaluation of the Pain-at-Work Toolkit. This toolkit was developed for employees with chronic pain and aims to equip people who have pain with the knowledge, skills and confidence to effectively self-manage a painful condition at work, access help and support, enjoy a better work experience and remain in the workforce.

Findings will be shared from our 3-year study in which we have implemented the Pain-at-Work Toolkit across workplaces in England. We will share our research findings, our future research plans and how we have worked together with people living with chronic pain throughout this journey.

The session will conclude with attendee comments and questions.

This Webinar is being hosted by IHPE and the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with Burning Nights CRPS Support. This project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation’s Oliver Bird Fund and Versus Arthritis, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the funders. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org and www.versusarthritis.org."

Speaker biographies:

Professor Holly Blake is a health psychologist, full professor of behavioural medicine at the University of Nottingham, Fellow of the British Psychological Society and Trustee/Fellow of IHPE. Listed in the Global Top 0.4% of cited scientists in workforce research, she has expertise in work and health, digital interventions and self-management of chronic conditions. She is author of The Pain-at-Work Toolkit, and principal investigator for the Pain-at-Work research.

Dr Wendy Chaplin is a psychologist with expertise in chronic pain, work and health, and self-management of chronic conditions. She is the trial manager for the Pain-at-Work study.

Dr Angela Thornton has a background in psychology and digital innovation. She is a Certified Member of the Market Research Society; with over 30 years industry experience specialising in healthcare.

Dr Melanie Narayanasamy is an experienced health and health education researcher, spanning the health and social sciences. She has research interests in people’s experiences of health and illness, and interventions to promote health and wellbeing, including workforce interventions.

Victoria Abbott-Fleming MBE is Chair of the Expert Patient and Carer Committee at the British Pain Society and the Founder & Chair of Trustees for Burning Nights CRPS Support. She is co-author of The Pain-at-Work Toolkit and a public partner in the Pain-at-Work study.