Community-based persistent pain program SPAN helps people get their lives back

For people living with persistent pain, everyday life can gradually become harder. Time with family, sleep, movement, social connection and confidence can all be affected. The Specialist Pain Assistance Network (SPAN) is helping change that by bringing evidence-based support closer to home and focusing on what matters most to people.

SPAN is a program funded by Metro North Health, created in partnership with the Tess Cramond Pain and Research Centre (TCPRC) and Brisbane North PHN, helping people with lower-acuity persistent pain to get local, multidisciplinary support instead of relying only on tertiary hospital-based services. SPAN offers a multidisciplinary, community-based persistent pain program using a provider called PainWISE.

The SPAN model of care includes triage with a TCPRC pain specialist and nurse navigator from point of referral, supported by case conferencing with the Specialist TCRPC multidisciplinary team, as well as regular clinical contact and review through the TCPRC and PainWISE nurse navigators. Direct persistent pain advice for GPs is available through the Clinical Advice Line from Monday to Friday. Robust and regular clinical communication between TCPRC and PainWISE ensures escalation pathways back to the specialist centre if patients' conditions change.

Utilising PainWISE’s Turning Pain into Gain program, participants can access allied health assessments, treatment and education to help them manage their pain in a community setting.

Care built around people

A key strength of the program is that it makes support easier to access.

With multiple locations across the North Brisbane and Moreton Bay region, the program is designed to reduce barriers and travel, improve convenience and help people engage with support earlier.

Participants are connected to community-based allied health professionals with a special interest in pain management, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology, counselling, exercise physiology, dietetics and podiatry.

Alongside treatment, the program uses practical self-management strategies, helping people build the skills, confidence and support networks needed to manage persistent pain over time.

This program also strengthens coordination across the health system. By bringing together allied health professionals, GPs, specialist hospital services and community supports, it creates a more connected care journey for patients while also building workforce capability through the development of a community of practice focusing on mentoring, education and shared learning.

What participants say has changed

What stands out most in participant feedback is that the program is not only helping people manage pain but also to reconnect with life.

For some, that means being present again with the people they love.

One participant shared, ‘Just last night my 16-year-old son came up to me and gave me a big hug and said it’s really good to have my mum back’.

Another reflected on being able to spend more quality time with her husband.

For others, the difference is found in the return of everyday moments that pain had interrupted. People described playing frisbee with their children, walking with family, making plans for the weekend and following through on them.

These may seem like small moments, but they point to something significant: pain exists, but people are learning techniques to manage pain so that it doesn’t define their every decision.

Participants also spoke about the emotional toll of persistent pain, including disconnectedness, reduced participation and the risk of depression when people stop doing what they value, with the program’s group-based model being especially powerful.

Attendees described feeling supported by facilitators who bring people together and by peers who understand what it means to live with pain.

Participants described feeling 'seen and understood', ‘accepted’ and reassured that they were not alone.

One person said, 'Group therapy is the best! I don’t feel alone knowing that I am not the only one experiencing pain'.

Others spoke about regaining a sense of agency: ‘I now have more control over my health treatment’, ‘I now have control of my life back again, instead of pain controlling me’, and ‘I now have the skills and ability to change focus with my pain and help along the way’.

Taken together, these reflections show the value of a community-based, human-centred approach to persistent pain, with SPAN demonstrating what’s possible when care is timely, local, coordinated and shaped around the realities of people’s daily lives.