# Measure and publish pain control rates in every cancer centre

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-acc-pain-control-public-audit/  
OnCo record `idea-acc-pain-control-public-audit` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

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.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- 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.
- Proposed 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

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most): WHO fact sheet, Palliative care: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/palliative-care

## Connected records

- fronts: [Supportive Care & Survivorship](https://onco.cc/fronts/supportive-care/)
- bottlenecks: [Pain relief and palliative care are unavailable to most](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-palliative/), [Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-toxicity-qol/)

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