- Accept that you have persistent pain & move on
- Get Involved - Building a support team
- Pacing. Learn to pace yourself
- Learn to prioritise and plan out your days
- Setting Goals and Action Plans
- Being patient with yourself
- Learn relaxation skills & keep relaxed
- Keeping fit. Stretching & Exercise
- Keep a diary and track your progress
- Have a set-back plan to fall back on
- Team Work. Get involved with others
- Keeping it up. Put into practise tools, 1-11
Available in French, German
Italian & more
The Pain Toolkit is also available in French, German & Italian and many more languages. They can be downloaded by clicking here.
Meet the Pain Toolkit Team
Find out who's behind all this useful info
The Pain Toolkit concept originated back in 2002 when Pete Moore was writing a self management article for pain health care professionals in Europe.
Living with pain himself, he recognised while writing his article, that he had developed a toolkit of pain management skills to enable himself to become an active self manager and to lead a better life. Most of the skills were learnt while attending a pain management programmes in London in 1996, and picked up others along the way.
Pete says "most people with pain depend too much on their health care professional to solve or get rid of the pain; they forget that they have to work with their health care professional in the management of their pain.
It is team-work, a partnership but not a partnership that is until death to you part. Pain self management is about learning new (or using old) skills, trying them out and see what works for you. Pain is like a finger print, so each person may need to have individual skills to suit them.
To download the Pain Toolkit overview, simply click here.
Dr Frances Cole
Frances Cole is a part time GP and pain rehabilitation specialist working in West Yorkshire. She trained in cognitive behavioural therapy at Newcastle CT Centre in 1993-4.
In 1996, she started the first UK multidisciplinary primary care pain rehabilitation service in Bradford based on cognitive behavioural therapy principles. She continues to run this service and works in clinical health psychology at Bradford Teaching Hospitals using CBT in a wide range of mental and physical health problems. She has developed a pain health needs assessment tool that won a NHS Modernisation award in 2005.
Frances runs a range of workshops and training courses for primary care trusts in Yorkshire and UK for primary care practitioners in CBT techniques for mental health, chronic pain and long term health condition self- management.
She is a co-author of a CBT self help guide "Overcoming Chronic Pain", part of the CBT based self-help guides published by Constable Robinson. She is a clinical lead for musculoskeletal disorders, pain and rheumatology at NHS Kirklees and NHS Bradford & Airedale and currently involved in the Map of Medicines pain pathways work.
Frances is currently the chair of the British Pain Society Pain Management Programme Special Interest Group whose current focus is on measuring patient outcomes and Pain Management Programme guidelines review.
E-mail frcole@btinternet.com
Pete Moore
Pete attended the INPUT Pain Management Programme (PMP) London in 1996. From 2002 until May 2011 he worked for the Expert Patient Programme as Senior Trainer for Pain and Business Development Manager.
He has written several patient/health care professional-led pain self-management programmes, including:-
- Managing your pain, one day at a time
- Persistent Pain Programme
- Pain Handbook for patients (illustrated)
- Managing pain, from the patients prospective
Pete has co-authored, with Dr. Frances Cole, a simple booklet for patients called the Pain & Self-Care Toolkit which has been supported by the Department of Health now used extensively in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Since 2009 200,000 copies have been printed and in circulation throughout the UK. They have translated into German, French and Italian by Grunenthal Switzerland. Whilst working for Grunenthal (Germany) he wrote a simple pain management programme, Managing your pain one day at time.
Pete regularly speaks to health care professionals and patient groups here in the UK, Europe and Australia) about pain self-management.
He works part time as part of the Patient Advisory Team for the University College London, Imperial College and Leicester University which are conducting research on the role of movements in persistent pain. The study is taking advantage from recent technological developments in the field of computer gaming and aims at record people's movements using special sensors.
Pete is a member of:
- British Pain Society (he supported the BPS when upgrading the desirable criteria for Pain Management Programmes in the UK)
- International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)
E-mail pete.moore@paintoolkit.org