Patients with back pain are failed by NHS

MILLIONS of back pain sufferers are being given the wrong treatment, a major review has found.

Many patients are needlessly prescribed strong painkillers, wrongly told to rest or even undergoing unnecessary surgery in a bid to treat lower back pain.

This is despite mounting evidence showing that simple exercises and stretches are more effective for easing symptoms.

Lower back pain is now the leading cause of disability in the UK, responsible for more than one in ten of all serious health complaints.

It costs the NHS £2.1billion annually and is estimated to cost the UK economy around £10billion in lost working days and informal care.

But international studies published in The Lancet medical journal found treatments often go against international guidelines. Many patients are prescribed powerful opioid painkillers or even referred for scans or surgery instead of being encouraged to keep active.

Professor Martin Underwood from the University of Warwick, part of the international team, warned this was costly to both patients and the health service.

He said: ‘We need to change the way we approach back pain treatment in the UK and help low and middle income countries to avoid developing high-cost services of limited effectiveness.’

The researchers reviewed evidence from both high and low income countries around the world to build up a global picture of the back pain problem and how it was being managed.

They concluded that lower

‘Life-changing consequences’

back pain was the world’s leading cause of disability but was often treated using aggressive approaches that had been shown not to work.

NHS watchdog Nice advises that sufferers are prescribed exercise, drugs such as ibuprofen, or both at the same time. Previous studies have shown opioid painkillers – prescription drugs that include morphine, tramadol and oxycodone – provide only ‘ minimal benefit’ for lower back pain. Yet recent figures suggest they are still prescribed to around 40 per cent of back pain patients.

Steve Tolan, head of practice at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said doctors were too quick to medicalise treatments.

‘That so many people start out with minor back pain and go on to suffer life-changing consequences is bad enough,’ he said. ‘That healthcare professionals contribute to that journey is unconscionable.’

Data shows that around one in seven GP appointments are for patients with musculoskeletal complaints, with back pain topping the list.

Each year in the UK, one million years of productive life was lost as a result of lower back pain.

Professor Nadine Foster, from Keele University, said there had to be a balance in treating back pain, adding that ‘doing more of the same that we’ve been trying for the last few decades’ would not reduce the disability.

TAI CHI is the best exercise for relieving chronic pain, research shows.

A study by Tufts Medical Centre in Boston found the martial art, which focuses on breathing, had similar or greater benefits than aerobic exercise for people with longterm condition fibromyalgia.