Here at the London Pain Clinic, our world class Pain Doctors are very mindful of the need to keep patients up to date about various developments. To that end, we would like to inform you about the British Pain Society’s “Getting It Right First Time” initiative. – A program that is being promoted to improve care pathways and cut variation in chronic pain management.
So What Exactly is ‘Getting It Right First Time’?
Also known as GIRFT, this strategy has been publicised as an NHS England plan which is: “designed to improve the treatment and care of patients through an in-depth review of services, benchmarking, and the presentation of a data-driven evidence base to support change. It undertakes clinically-led reviews of specialities, combining wide-ranging data analysis with the input and professional knowledge of senior clinicians to examine how things are currently being done and how they could be improved. – All aspects which beg the question as to why they have not been carried out before, and why this drive is referred to as ‘Getting it Right the First Time’, when many of these ‘initiatives’ should have implemented from the get-go, and up and running for years.
Moreover, it is also stated that: “by tackling variations in the way services are delivered across the NHS, and by sharing best practice between trusts, GIRFT identifies changes that will help improve care and patient outcomes, as well as delivering efficiencies, such as the reduction of unnecessary procedures, and cost savings” [1]. And clearly, helping to improve care and patient outcome is in crucial need of attention in these times of underfunding and staff shortages, not to mention misdiagnosis. For example, general practitioners can easily misdiagnose patients and not provide optimum treatment solutions due to their lack of expertise in the fields of pain conditions and pain treatments, therapies and injectables. This is due to the fact that the majority of GPs have not undergone the essential additional years of training and in-house clinical expertise as that of Pain Doctors.
One Example of the Downside
The GIRFT program has been put into practice in over 40 medical and surgical specialities and intersections (incorporating: day case surgery, diagnostics, and clinical coding) [1]. One example of this is fibromyalgia. – One of the conditions which our London Fibromyalgia Pain Clinic Fibro Doctors are renowned all over the UK and Europe for in terms of providing:
- An accurate diagnosis (something which many GPs have failed at), as well as
- A Holistic Personalised Treatment Plan which encompasses multifaceted treatments. These include conventional options as well as the latest leading-edge state-of-the-art therapies and injectables, along with dietary and lifestyle advice
Of note, BioMed Central has published research which states that the: “Getting It Right First Time” program: “recommends that management of people with fibromyalgia should centre on primary care [that is to say, general practice doctors]. However, it remains unclear as to how best to organise health systems to deliver services to optimise patient outcomes” [2].
For far too long, countless GPs have not recognised fibromyalgia, and when it comes to the latter, and other forms of pain, some have simply written prescriptions for pharmaceuticals, so to that end, sufferers have not been given an optimal multi-faceted treatment protocol to help get their lives back on track as soon as possible.
Getting Your Pain Sorted
If you would like to find out more, you can arrange a Pain Consultation with one of our Pain Doctors, either online, or in-person at our Harley Street London Pain Clinic.
References
[1]. NHS England (2025). “About the GIRFT programme at NHS England.”
https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/what-we-do/
[2]. Wilson, N., Beasley, M.J., Pope, C. et al. UK healthcare services for people with fibromyalgia: results from two web-based national surveys (the PACFiND study). BMC Health Serv Res 22, 989 (2022). As cited by BMC.
https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-022-08324-4#citeas
