Plymouth Pain Cafes to benefit from National Lottery funding to help people in chronic pain

A Plymouth-based community group is celebrating after being awarded almost £20,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund to support its work in the community helping people in chronic pain.  

Chronic Pain Coaching CIC, founded in 2023 to support people living with chronic pain using pain management techniques in a supportive peer support group, will use the money to continue running and expand on ‘Pain Cafes’, currently held in Plympton and Wolseley Road. 

Chronic Pain Coaching CIC was founded by two people with lived experience, Julie Widdecombe with support from Sean Jennings, after Julie had to re-build her life following spinal cord injury and fibromyalgia. Both Julie and Sean live with chronic pain and manage medication-free. Julie realized that support for those with chronic pain locally was limited and wanted to promote supported self-management.  

The group currently runs two monthly pain cafes where participants can receive peer support, join in safe, guided movement, and learn essential skills. Each session is guided by Sean and Julie and focus on coaching people through the ‘Ten Footsteps’ of pain management, helping to increase self-confidence and connect people to others who may be struggling with pain.  

Health Innovation South West has facilitated the development of the Pain Cafes to reduce high-dose opiate prescribing, through bespoke support provided via our Medicines Safety Improvement Programme, and evaluation support to focus the scope of the pilot cafe and demonstrate impact. Learn more.   

Implementation of the cafes has also been supported by Plymouth Octopus Project team, the Rees Centre, and Wolseley Community Trust. 

Julie Widdecombe, Founding Director of Chronic Pain Coaching CIC, said: “The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund will guarantee the future of the cafes. Thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to continue with our valuable service and reach out to others in the community who need our help. Those living with daily pain often feel helpless and isolated and we can give them the skills to manage their condition themselves, reducing burden on local health services.” 

Sean Jennings said: “I have lived with chronic pain for nearly thirty-two years, twenty-five of those years on high dose prescription medication. I am now six and a half years medication free, using the same strategies we are teaching in our cafes. Both Julie and I are passionate about making a difference to the lives of people in pain. The National Lottery Community Fund Award will enable us to continue our much-needed work.” 

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£615.4 million) of life-changing funding to communities.  

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk    

To learn more about our work to reduce medication-related harm, visit our Medicines Safety Improvement Programme webpage.  

You can also read this story on the Plymouth Chronicle website.