Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 53

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FEATURE
ESCAPE-pain national spread
by the AHSN Network, March
2018 to June 2019
those with a part to play in the innovation agenda, from within the
NHS, from industry and from academia, creating partnerships to
find, evaluate and deploy solutions to meet that need.’
Focus on ESCAPE-pain
ESCAPE-pain is just one example of how the AHSNs are working
together to take innovations from one area and quickly spread
them across England.
Regina Yillah, a participant of ESCAPE-pain says: ‘Before
ESCAPE-pain my osteoarthritis was very bad, I had suffered for
over 10 years. I was in a wheelchair to start with and I couldn’t
walk.
‘But now I can move more. Getting on a bus — that was way
beyond me. Now, I get on the bus on my own. It has really given
me my independence back, and more than anything else it has
given me my confidence.’
One of seven current programmes chosen by the NHS and
AHSNs for national rollout between 2018 and 2020, Escape-
pain is a rehabilitation programme for people with chronic joint
pain of the knees and/or hips, that integrates educational self-
management and coping strategies with an exercise regimen
individualised for each participant.
It helps people understand their condition, teaches them
simple things they can do to help themselves, and takes them
through a progressive exercise programme so they learn how to
cope with pain better.
Developed by London-based NHS physiotherapist Mike
Hurley, the programme supports the NHS Long-Term Plan aim to
increase out-of-hospital care by delivering the programme through
trained professionals include fitness instructors in community halls
and leisure centres.
ESCAPE-pain’s focus on education and exercise offers people
and GPs options to better manage pain associated to osteoarthritis.
The programme runs for a total of 12 sessions over six weeks
with participants attending two, hour-long classes a week. The
classes teach people the skills they need to self-manage and
reduce their pain. Each class starts with a brief discussion about
pain and how it can be reduced and is then followed by an
individualised exercise programme.
With AHSN support (and in partnership with NHS England,
charity Versus Arthritis, and Sport England), the number of sites
around England offering the programmes increased four-fold in
just over a year, from 50 to around 200 sites (at October 2019 this
has increased further to around 230) and almost 6,000 people
with osteoarthritis have participated.
Recent independent evaluations have also reinforced how
much money the NHS saves by taking this approach, showing
Regina Yillah (76), a participant of ESCAPE-pain, one of a number of
programmes being rapidly spread nationally via England’s 15 AHSNs
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