Chronic Pain Statewide Clinical Network

The Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work has been estab­lished to work on improv­ing the pro­vi­sion of inte­grat­ed mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary care for peo­ple with chron­ic pain.

Cur­rent Projects

  • Man­ag­ing Pain in the Com­mu­ni­ty
    This project aims to define a clear com­mu­ni­ty mod­el for pain man­age­ment, map exist­ing pain sup­port ser­vices and ini­tia­tives and iden­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve the deliv­ery of pain man­age­ment ser­vices in the com­mu­ni­ty and enable a smooth inter­face with the acute sector.
  • Improv­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and man­age­ment of Low­er Back Pain in unplanned Emer­gency Depart­ment pre­sen­ta­tion
    This project is cur­rent­ly being scoped and aims to iden­ti­fy clear, time­ly and appro­pri­ate path­ways for LBP so that peo­ple can access care in, or close to, the home and, where hos­pi­tal inter­ven­tion is required, receive evi­dence-informed care that opti­mis­es out­comes and expe­ri­ences for people.
  • Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Round­table
    In late 2021 the Net­work held an Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Round­table dis­cus­sion aimed at improv­ing cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion to bet­ter under­stand, define and opti­mise opi­oid stew­ard­ship in South Aus­tralia. The find­ings from the round­table will be doc­u­ment­ed for the Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Clin­i­cal Cau­cus, a joint ven­ture between the Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work and the Office of the Chief Phar­ma­cist. More on the round­table dis­cus­sion can be found under Doc­u­ments and Addi­tion­al Infor­ma­tion below.
Statewide Chronic Pain Clinical Network Steering Committee
Marc Apol­loni
Ade­laide Pri­ma­ry Health Network
Mark Cox
Pri­vate Ser­vices, Psy­chol­o­gy, Physiotherapy
Sue Edwards
Rur­al, Pain Ser­vice Co-ordi­na­tion, Nursing
Nic­ki Ferencz
WCHN Pae­di­atric Pain Ser­vice, Psychology
Michael Find­lay
Med­i­cine (Addic­tion, Pain), Prison Services
Inara Betts
Coun­try Pri­ma­ry Health Networks
Jac­in­ta Johnson
Pri­ma­ry Care, Hos­pi­tal, Phar­ma­cy, Med­ica­tion Safety
Mark Jones
NAL­HN Pain Ser­vice, Nursing

Kin Lau
Rur­al, Aged Care, Hos­pi­tal Avoid­ance, Med­ical (Pain, RACGP)
Noël Markham
SAL­HN Pain Ser­vice, Physiotherapy
Tim Sem­ple
CAL­HN Pain Ser­vice, Med­ical (Anaes­thet­ics, Pain)
Edwina Shan­non
Pri­vate Ser­vices, Research, Edu­ca­tion, Occu­pa­tion­al Therapy
Samuel Whit­tle
Liv­ing Guide­lines, Edu­ca­tion, Med­ical (Rheuma­tol­ogy)
Jack­ie Yeoh
Med­ical (RACGP, Hos­pi­tal Liai­son), Shared Care
Mary Wing
Con­sumer representative 
Leah Trot­ta
Con­sumer representative 

Network Lead

Associate Professor Anne Burke

Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work Vision

A strong, con­nect­ed and inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice which pro­motes evi­dence-informed pre­ven­tion, ear­ly inter­ven­tion and man­age­ment of pain across the life span for all South Australians.

Statewide Chron­ic Pain Clin­i­cal Net­work Aims

The Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work will:

  1. Fos­ter improved recog­ni­tion and under­stand­ing of chron­ic pain and its effec­tive man­age­ment in the community.
  2. Fos­ter sys­tems devel­op­ment to enable trans­par­ent shar­ing of data which can sup­port cross-sec­tor ser­vice design, deliv­ery and collaboration.
  3. Sup­port improve­ments in com­mu­ni­ty, pri­ma­ry health and hos­pi­tal set­tings to ensure time­ly access to evi­dence informed care for all South Aus­tralians liv­ing with pain.
  4. Build an inte­grat­ed Com­mu­ni­ty of Prac­tice that opti­mis­es the expe­ri­ence and out­comes of chron­ic pain management.

Documents and Additional Information

Doc­u­ments

Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Round­table — Octo­ber 2021

Con­sis­tent with inter­na­tion­al trends, rates of opi­oid pre­scrib­ing con­tin­ue to increase across the nation.
In 2018, South Aus­tralia was the sec­ond high­est ranked state for num­ber of opi­oid-relat­ed PBS/RPBS pre­scrip­tions dispensed.

Opi­oids are high risk med­i­cines and opi­oid-relat­ed harm is well known. Enhanc­ing opi­oid stew­ard­ship requires the abil­i­ty to share exper­tise, knowl­edge and data across the health system.

The Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work organ­ised an Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Round­table Dis­cus­sion on 13 Octo­ber 2021. The round­table was designed to improve cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion in order to bet­ter under­stand, define and opti­mise opi­oid stew­ard­ship in South Aus­tralia because this was iden­ti­fied as a crit­i­cal aspect of care improvement.

The round­table dis­cus­sion includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion from over 25 key stake­hold­ers whose exper­tise spanned local health net­works, Office of the Chief Phar­ma­cist (Depart­ment for Health & Well­be­ing), pri­vate hos­pi­tals, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices, ScriptCheck, med­ica­tion safe­ty, addic­tion, research, aged care, rur­al ser­vices and sys­tems design (incl. the elec­tron­ic med­ical record).

The Round­table was a tar­get­ed dis­cus­sion exploring:

  • What good Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship looks like
  • How good stew­ard­ship is measured
  • The infor­ma­tion touch­points across the var­i­ous stages of the patient pathway
  • Part­ner­ship opportunities.

The find­ings from the round­table will be doc­u­ment­ed for the Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Clin­i­cal Cau­cus which is being estab­lished as a joint ven­ture under the Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work and the Office of the Chief Phar­ma­cist.
The pur­pose of the Opi­oid Stew­ard­ship Clin­i­cal Cau­cus is to iden­ti­fy the var­i­ous dri­vers for change and to sup­port the design and imple­men­ta­tion of a sus­tain­able future mod­el for opti­mal opi­oid stew­ard­ship across the South Aus­tralian health sector.


Have a Question?

Or want to know more about the Chron­ic Pain Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work?
Please email CEIH.​ChronicPain@​sa.​gov.​au.