A patient welfare logger that also has other event logging applications as in sailing, golfing or wildlife watching, for example

Recently, Dr. Mark Piper, Consultant Anaesthetist at Wansbeck General Hospital, Ashington, Northumberland, emailed Editor Mike: There is a need for a “pain meter” in modern hospital practice. This meter needs to prompt the patient to record an assessment of their pain and store this information for downloading. This would help in research into pain relief after surgery.

There are many “pain scales” used. A common one is the visual analogue score. This is a 100mm line, one end represents no pain, the other end represents the “worst pain imaginable”. The patient is expected to mark along this line where their pain severity is, for example:

The NHS does not have the adequate nursing resources, and research and audit into pain is not a clinical priority. If a tool was available that allowed the patients to record their pain scores this would be helpful.