SIP Policy Objectives
Four objectives guide SIP's advocacy work at EU and national level: integrating pain management within healthcare systems, addressing pain in employment and economic policy, promoting pain research and education, and recognising pain as a chronic condition in its own right.
01
Integrating Pain Management Within Healthcare Systems
We call on the European Commission to:
- Recognise the important role pain management plays within healthcare systems and the need for systematic inclusion of pain management considerations within European healthcare strategies.
- Support the development of pain management centres of excellence across Europe and encourage a network for these centres to spread expertise and promote best practices across Europe.
- Support the development of centres of excellence in pain management across Europe and foster a collaborative network to enhance understanding and to improve the quality and sustainability of services.
We call on National Governments to:
- Establish dedicated pain management clinics and hospital pain services, incorporating evidence-based guidance and best practices on multidisciplinary and multimodal pain treatment.
- Identify a national pain services lead within the healthcare system, to coordinate the country’s approach to pain management and maintain standards.
- Ensure equitable access to pain services across all population groups, with attention to underserved communities such as rural areas, older adults, women, migrants, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Our commitments
- To foster best practices and evidence-based guidance to support healthcare systems, and to set high standard for pain education across Europe to elevate the knowledge and competences of healthcare professionals available to national healthcare systems
02
Pain in Employment and Economic Considerations
We call on the European Commission to:
- Work together with national authorities to promote policies that reflect the link between pain management/care and employment.
- Promote EU-level policy frameworks that recognise the link between pain, employment and productivity.
- Build on outcomes of projects such as CHRODIS-Plus and PATHWAYS by supporting the integration of pain into relevant training tools and programmes under employment and policy.
We call on National Governments to:
- Support data collection at the national level to assess employment impact of chronic pain and inform evidence-based policy.
- Encourage regional and local policymakers to promote policies that support individuals living with chronic pain to remain in or return to work.
- Develop measurable national indicators to track the effectiveness of employment-related pain policies, including return-to-work outcomes, accommodations uptake, and long-term productivity.
Our commitments
- Engage civil society, healthcare professionals, patient organisations, and employers in sharing best practices to improve workplace productivity for people with pain.
- Continue collecting and sharing data on pain and employment through surveys and stakeholder consultation to inform policy development at both EU and national levels.
03
Promoting Pain Research and Education
We call on the European Commission to:
- Prioritise investment in pain research across EU framework programmes, employment, and health policy, with emphasis on the societal impact of pain.
- Include pain as a thematic area within mission-oriented and innovation programmes (e.g. Horizon Europe), covering topics such as effective treatment models, screening tools, e- and m-health, behavioural and systems-level research, cellular and molecular mechanisms, and precision medicine. Social science should be integrated to ensure a holistic approach.
- Support national governments in sharing best practices (e.g. patient and professional education).
- Promote awareness-raising campaigns and public information initiatives to foster societal understanding of pain as a public health priority.
- Promote research and innovation in digital pain management tools, such as mobile health (mHealth) apps, artificial intelligence, and telemedicine platforms that support personalised care and early intervention.
We call on National Governments to:
- Initiate patient education programmes and information campaigns in order to create public awareness of the short and long-term consequences of inadequate access to pain treatment, while promoting prevention and early intervention.
- Promote wider access to pain education within healthcare professions, especially to all those involved with assessing and treating pain, and including those supporting people with conditions for which pain is a comorbidity
- Allocate further investment in research (basic science, clinical, and epidemiological) on the societal impact of pain and make funds available through employment and health policy and research and innovation programmes.
Our commitments
- Patient groups, healthcare professionals, and researchers foster the dissemination of research outcomes to their community and support a patient-led approach to pain research.
- Civil society, healthcare professionals and patient groups share best practices on pain education for patients, healthcare professionals, politicians and the broader community.
- Civil society, healthcare professionals and patient groups continue working on their educational programmes and projects targeted to these audiences.
04
Pain as a Chronic Condition
We call on the European Commission to:
- Address the invisibility of chronic pain in EU health monitoring and data collection frameworks.
- Support the implementation of the ICD-11 classification of chronic pain and promoting its integration into national health data systems.
- Ensure that chronic pain is integrated into the European Health Data Space (EHDS), both as a public health and research priority.
We call on National Governments to:
- Establish national quality indicators for pain, particularly chronic primary pain, to inform cross-border healthcare access and ensure pain-related information is integrated into comprehensive electronic health records.
- Ensure full and timely implementation of ICD-11 at national level to enable the collection of data on chronic pain.
- Implement Article 8.5 of the Directive on Patients’ Rights in Cross-Border Healthcare with specific attention to patients living with chronic pain.
Our commitments
- Healthcare professionals, patient groups and researchers to drive the implementation of ICD-11, which recognises chronic pain as a distinct condition, through field studies, clinical integration, and stakeholder engagement.
- Contribute to policy developments on quality indicators by establishing the most scientifically valid and patient-relevant indicators for pain.