Developing Australian Standards for Health Practitioner Pain Management Education

Around one in five Australians live with chronic pain, a number projected to rise in future years. Chronic pain is one of the world's major healthcare needs, with serious financial and social implications for individuals, families and communities.

Best practice in pain management involves care delivered by inter- and multi-disciplinary teams under the biopsychosocial approach. Despite the need for skilled health practitioners from multiple disciplines to address the growing burden of pain on the community, there is generally limited pain management content in health practitioner education at all levels worldwide. In Australia, pain management education varies greatly across health practitioner disciplines, geographic locations and education stages.

National standards will provide a framework for the development and delivery of pain management education, ensuring consistency across disciplines and education sectors. The standards will be a set of concise statements that act as quality markers for health practitioner pain management education. They will provide a valuable benchmark to regulators when assessing education programs.
 
Importantly, the standards will provide a template for changing the way in which we develop and deliver pain education to ensure that it is accessible and relevant for all. The national standards will assist in ensuring a consistent approach to pain management education across disciplines and support internal consistency between the stages/levels of a health practitioner’s education journey.
These standards will be aspirational with the aim of improving the care of individuals experiencing pain. 
 
The standards will:

• be relevant across multiple health practitioner disciplines and levels of education;
• be underpinned by the values and principles of the National Strategy for Health Practitioner Pain Management Education;
• provide a framework for the development and delivery of pain management education, ensuring consistency across disciplines and educations sectors within Australia;
• provide a template for changing the way that pain education is developed and delivered to ensure that it is accessible and relevant for all;
• and be inclusive of the needs of priority populations.

A governance advisory group, consisting of representatives from a diverse range of stakeholder groups, met for the first time in May 2024. The purpose of the group is to provide advice and guidance to the project team.

The members of the group are as follows:

• Ms Martina Otten, FPM Executive Director, and Chair 
• Dr Tim Austin, Chair, Australian Physiotherapy Association National Pain Group 
• A/Prof Lilon Bandler, Senior Research Fellow, Leaders in Indigenous Medical Education (LIME) Network (until October 2024)
• Dr Shayne Bellingham, Project Lead, LIME Network (until October 2024)
• Prof Anne Burke, Lead, South Australian Chronic Pain Statewide Clinical Network
• Ms Holly Bradstreet, Registered Nurse, Australian College of Nursing
• Mr Chris Campbell, General Manager, Policy and Program Delivery, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia
• Prof Susan Hillier, Professor, Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, University of South Australia
• Ms Fiona Hodson, Vice-Chairperson, Chronic Pain Australia
• Dr Phoebe Holdenson Kimura, Clinical Advisor, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
• Ms Nidia Raya Martinez, Program Manager for the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative, Federation of Ethnic Committees’ Council of Australia
• Ms Helen Maxwell-Wright, Consumer representative, ANZCA
• Mr Sean Mutchmor, General Manager, Quality and Safety, Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine
• A/Prof Michael Reynolds, Indigenous Allied Health Australia
• Prof Helen Slater, Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University
• Dr Adele Stewart, Chair, RACGP Pain Management Special Interest Group
• Mr Sinan Tejani, Australian Pain Society Director, Tasmania
• Dr Noam Winter, Head of Pain Services, Alfred Health, and FPM Board Member 

To ensure the standards arising from this project are accepted across the education and health sectors, it is vital to incorporate extensive stakeholder consultation. 
The pain education standards will be inclusive of the needs of priority sub-populations including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, rural and remote populations, people living with disabilities, children and adolescents.

Since mid-August, the project team has conducted five in-person workshops in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as three online workshops. Two additional online discussions have also been undertaken with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners, and with culturally and linguistically diverse health practitioners and people with lived experience of pain.  

Overall, 265 people registered for the workshops with 207 people able to attend. Attendees included people with lived experience of pain and representatives from a broad range of sectors (e.g. various levels of the health, education and government sectors), multiple health disciplines, diverse organisations (e.g. not-for-profit agencies, medical colleges, health professional associations, peak health organisations) and roles. People who registered for a workshop but were unable to attend on the day will be kept informed of the project’s progress. 

Following the extensive stakeholder consultations conducted in mid-2024, the project team coded and thematically analysed the data. A group of workshop attendees then confirmed the internal validity of the identified themes.

On 12 November 2024, the project’s governance advisory group reviewed these themes, the internal validity results, and the proposed next steps. External validity was subsequently confirmed by a group of relevant stakeholders who had not participated in the workshops.

In recent months, the project team and the governance advisory group, with support from an external consultant, have been identifying and reviewing guidelines, policies, legislation, and other materials relevant to health practitioner pain management education. This review ensures the standards align with current policies, legislation, and best practices.

The project continues to progress well and remains firmly on track. Drafting of the pain management education standards commenced in January, building on the extensive stakeholder consultation undertaken throughout 2024. Through thematic analysis of the stakeholder data, rigorous internal and external validation processes and careful consideration by the project’s governance advisory group, the topics for drafting as standards (as of May 2025) are as follows: 

Education and training for health practitioners on pain management: 

• promotes a person-centred approach to care.
• is developed and delivered in alignment with contemporary approaches to learning and teaching.
• is based on the best available evidence.
• promotes reflective practice and self-awareness.
• develops a health practitioner’s understanding of, and effective skills in, communicating with people experiencing pain.
• embeds a collaborative approach to pain management.

During April and May, the set of six draft standards is the focus of a Delphi process involving the project’s governance advisory group.  

Following this, a period of public consultation will take place during June and July. If you have not previously been involved in the project but wish to be involved in the consultation, please contact the Project Manager Gen Nolan.  

The final set of standards will be submitted to government by 13 October, with an online portal developed during the year ready for the housing of the standards when approved by government.  

If you have any questions about the project, please contact the Project Manager Gen Nolan.