Request

I am contacting you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from the relevant department, directorate or division in your organisation that has responsibility for commissioning Pain Medicine or Chronic Pain Services, including the finance and performance aspects of the service.

My purpose in making this request is to research the variations (if any) in how this figure is being calculated as the nature of Chronic Pain services run within a multidisciplinary team means that follow ups are counted very differently in different units, for example some units count attendance at a pain management program over several weeks as a therapy and do not include it in the new:fu ratio others count every attendance.

FOI questions. (If there is more than one chronic pain service regularly used or commissioned, for example where your CCG commissions on behalf of several CCGs please supply data for all chronic pain services used).

The definition of calculation used for new to follow up ratios for chronic pain referrals for the main local pain service that your CCG area uses or commissions.

The data for new to follow up for chronic pain referrals for your main local service for the years April 2010 to April 2015.

Is the calculation used for new and follow-up in Chronic Pain a local or national definition?

Can you provide the wording of the definition used?

Does the New to follow up ratio calculation that is used by your organisation for Chronic Pain also apply to other specialties?

If no - please explain the differences in the calculations. 

Response 1

Rotherham CCG do not have a specific Chronic Pain Service.