Pain - elearning for healthcare
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This programme is in partnership with...
  • Faculty of Pain Medicine
  • British Pain Society

About the HEE elearning Pain Management programme

e-PAIN from elearning for healthcare is the place to start for anyone working in the NHS who wishes to better understand and manage pain. e-PAIN is a multidisciplinary programme based on the global organisation, the International Association for the Study of Pain’s recommended multidisciplinary curriculum for healthcare professionals learning about pain management. Registration to the programme is free to all NHS staff members.

Pain touches everyone. It is a universal human experience and one of the most common reasons to seek medical advice. Pain is more than just suffering, it can impact on individuals and affect their day-to-day physical activity, emotional wellbeing and sometimes that of their family. Pain can affect any individual’s ability to work and as a consequence impact on both their community and society as a whole. Pain touches not only individuals – healthcare professionals in many areas understand the impact of poorly managed pain in their everyday work.

e-PAIN uniquely distills the knowledge of a range of professionals into 12 Modules made up of interactive sessions to meet the needs of a multidisciplinary audience. The modules cover knowledge ranging from how to managing acute pain well, through to learning in depth about common pain conditions and moves on to cover how to manage pain in specialist areas, like pain in cancer or pain in childhood. e-PAIN  is current, up to date and presented in an interactive way to make both basic and specialist knowledge accessible.

Any e-PAIN module can be completed stand alone and a downloadable certificate is available upon completion of each module; you can view a certificate template by clicking here. Most sessions take on average 30 minutes to complete and each module has on average 5 sessions.

e-PAIN is a collaboration between the The Faculty of Pain Medicine, the British Pain Society and elearning for healthcare. It is provided by Health Education England.

Pharmacology for Acute Pain session object

  • Pharmacology for Acute Pain

    This session explains the mechanisms of acute pain and its management using multimodal analgesia.

Session content

The specific issues addressed by the programme’s 30-minute sessions include:

(i) improving the recognition of unrelieved acute and chronic pain in all patients groups;
(ii) appropriate assessment of pain;
(iii) first-class management of pain; and
(iv) ensuring good clinical practice.

Background and approach

Most of the material is written by the elearning pain team; however, the programme will utilise other content on the elfh elearning system as appropriate, including elearning sessions and further reading material. Self-assessment is integral to the user experience and certification of use and assessments are available. Modules are tailored to the experience and training of the user so that all healthcare professionals can:

  • consolidate core knowledge required for their role; and
  • significantly advance their knowledge to aid improved understanding, attitudes, clinical practice and outcomes.

The development of this educational initiative in pain management utilises the knowledge and skills of the team at the Royal College of Anaesthetists, Faculty of Pain Medicine and its partners who successfully delivered the award winning elearning Anaesthesia programme and, on behalf of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Academic Medicine module. Authors and editors are also drawn from the executive and membership of the multidisciplinary British Pain Society who have considerable experience in multi-professional educational initiatives.

Project structure

The following modules are available on e-PAIN

Project Team

  • Nancy Cox

    Project Clinical Lead, Faculty of Pain Medicine, RCoA
  • Deepak Ravindran

    Deputy Project Clinical Lead, Faculty of Pain Medicine, RCoA
  • Marnie Greenrod

    Marnie Greenrod

    Senior Project Manager, HEE elearning for healthcare
  • Tracy Watkins

    Tracy Watkins

    Lead Learning Designer, HEE elearning for healthcare
  • Karole Smith

    Karole Smith

    Programme Manager, HEE elearning for healthcare
  • Sumit Gulati

    Sumit Gulati

    ePAIN Librarian, Faculty of Pain Medicine, RCoA
  • Anna Ripley

    Anna Ripley

    Education and Engagement Manager (Faculties), Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Faculty of Pain Medicine
  • Claudia Ott

    Education and Engagement Coordinator (Faculties), Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Faculty of Pain Medicine
  • Nicola Kipling

    Nicola Kipling

    Marketing and Communications Officer, HEE TEL
  • James Goodwin

    Associate Director of Faculties, RCoA

How to access

In order to access the Pain Management programme, you will need an elfh account. If you do not have one, then you can register by selecting the Register button below.

Register >

To view the Pain Management programme, select the View button below. If you already have an account with elfh, you will also be able to login and enrol on the programme from the View button.

View >

NHS healthcare staff in England

The Pain Management programme is also available to NHS healthcare staff via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). Accessing this elearning via ESR means that your completions will transfer with you throughout your NHS career.

Further details are available here.

Not an NHS organisation?

If you are not an NHS health or care organisation and therefore do not qualify for free access elfh Hub, you may be able to access the service by creating an OpenAthens account.

To check whether or not you qualify for free access via OpenAthens, you can view the eligibility criteria and register on the ‘OpenAthens’ portal.

Registering large numbers of users

If you are a HR, IT or Practice Manager and would like to register and enrol large numbers of staff within your organisation for access onto the Pain Management programme, please contact elfh directly.

Organisations wishing to use their own LMS

For HR departments wanting to know more about gaining access to courses using an existing Learning Management System please contact elfh directly to express interest.

How to license

In the event that you do not qualify for free access to the Pain Management programme, you are able to license access through eIntegrity, a community-interest company established for this purpose.
You can check whether or not you qualify for free access by clicking on the ‘Register’ button above.

For more information on the licensing options available for the Pain Management programme, please visit the eIntegrity website.

More information

Please select the following link for more information on how to use the elfh Hub.

elfh is a NHS England programme in partnership with the NHS and professional bodies