Scandinavian journal of pain
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Background All nations are posed with the challenge of deciding how to allocate limited health care resources. A Patients' Rights Law from 1999 gives patients in Norway with a serious health condition, for which there is efficacious and cost-effective treatment, a legal right to receive health care from the National Health Care system. Methods Recently national guidelines have been produced for implementing these legal rights within 32 fields of specialist health care. ⋯ The full version of the guidelines describes pain categories in detail and gives information on cases that do not qualify to be prioritised for care in a pain clinic. Conclusions Norwegian national guidelines for prioritising among pain conditions are in the process of being implemented. Epidemiologic data and expert opinion suggest that in order to meet the chronic pain patient's legal claim to prioritised specialist health care, the national health care system in Norway will have to establish new pain clinics and increase capacity at existing pain clinics.