An Investigation Into the Use of Emergency Medical Services by People Attending the Emergency Department With Back Pain

Purpose and Design

Back Pain is a common cause of pain and disability. The National Institute for Clinical Excellent [NICE] (2016) identify back pain as affecting 1 in 10 people and causing more disability than any other condition. In most people back pain resolves within a number of weeks without any healthcare input. For those whose pain does not improve physical and psychological treatments are recommended. These are provided by specialist services and are not available in Emergency Departments or via Ambulance Services (collectively referred to as Emergency Medical Services [EMS]). Thus, arguably only a very small minority of patients with back pain, where a severe medical pathology is indicated (e.g. cauda equina syndrome) should need to access EMS. However, anecdotally many people with back pain self-refer to EMS. The prevalence of people self-referring and their characteristics are currently unknown as these figures are not routinely reported although the information exists within the data collected by many trusts.

This study aims to analyse anonymised data from the Darlington Memorial Hospital (DMH) Emergency Department (ED) to establish the prevalence of those attending with back pain. The characteristics of people presenting over a 12-month period with back pain, along with characteristics of their contact (e.g.

administration of analgesia and the use of diagnostic imaging) will be described and compared to the general characteristics of those attending ED.

These characteristics may help to inform healthcare service design, both EMS and non-EMS, to better meet the needs of this patient group.