Pain Concern

President name: Heather Wallace
Secretary: Christine Hughes
Member: Brian East
Member: Penelope Cumming
Member: Pamela Taylor
Other: Paul Black, Nicholas Allcock, Jean Gaffin

Pain Concern is a U.K based charity that works to help, support and inform people living with pain, their families, and health care professionals. It was founded on April 26th 1995 as a self-help group. It operated for 10 years as Astley Ainslie Hospital’s pain management support group before beginning as a registered charity in Scotland. It works with pain clinics, medical specialists and volunteers from across the UK.

Our charitable purposes as recorded in our constitution are to alleviate pain and suffering. Summary of the main activities in relation to these objectives:

• Our Airing Pain radio programme, available online and on CD, features the experiences of those managing their everyday pain and interviews with top, internationally-recognised experts.
• Our magazine Pain Matters, available in digital and print editions, contains news, features and comment on topics including self-management techniques, research into pain treatments and personal experiences of living with pain.
• We run a helpline staffed by trained volunteers, providing information, support, or just a listening ear to people wanting to talk about their own pain or that of a family member or friend. A free information pack on how to manage pain is available. The Pain Concern online community on HealthUnlocked provides its members with a forum to share experiences.
• Pain Concern conducts research providing insight into the state of pain management services and the experiences of people in pain. This contributes to our policy and campaigning work to raise awareness about pain and improve service provision.

We would expect PAE to carry out the aims as stated and promote the voice of people with pain across Europe through lobbying within the parliament and through working with other interested parties. We would want to be kept informed of what is happening in Europe through a newsletter or short updates and be informed when we as individual charities can take action to promote the work of the PAE.