{"entity":{"id":"idea-acc-pain-control-public-audit","kind":"idea","name":"Measure and publish pain control rates in every cancer centre","aka":[],"tldr":"Hospitals publish survival and infection rates but almost never how many of their cancer patients are in uncontrolled pain. Measuring and publishing it would make pain a priority.","summary":"Undertreated cancer pain remains common even in well-resourced systems. Routine pain scoring exists in many hospitals but is not aggregated, benchmarked, or published. A national quality indicator (for instance, the proportion of patients with advanced cancer reporting moderate or severe pain at outpatient visits) with public reporting by centre would use the same accountability lever that improved infection control and waiting times.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most): WHO fact sheet, Palliative care","url":"https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/palliative-care"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["supportive-care"],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-palliative","b-toxicity-qol"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Centres subject to public pain-control reporting will reduce the proportion of patients with moderate or severe pain by at least a third within two years.","rationale":"Public reporting of simple, patient-relevant indicators changes institutional priorities; pain is measurable, common, and treatable.","test":"Pilot a national indicator with public reporting in one country and compare pain prevalence trends with a comparator without reporting.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"policy","cost":"small","horizonYears":2},"route":"/ideas/idea-acc-pain-control-public-audit/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"supportive-care","kind":"section","name":"Supportive Care & Survivorship","route":"/fronts/supportive-care/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-palliative","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most","route":"/bottlenecks/b-palliative/"},{"id":"b-toxicity-qol","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued","route":"/bottlenecks/b-toxicity-qol/"}]}}