Chronic Pain Management

Services provided by the department

Persistent pain leads to loss of physical, social, and emotional well-being. Sufferers are likely to make disproportionately high demands on health care resources.

The consultant members of the Pain Management department help many sufferers of persistent pain by offering:

• Full biopsychosocial assessment including red flag symptoms and signs investigated when appropriate, and recognition of blue flag psychological signs
   
• Education and support
   
• Rationalisation of medication to maximise pain relief whilst reducing side effects and interactions
   
• Optimisation of self-management
   
• Evidence based interventions to reduce the severity of pain including:
   
• facet joint injections and radiofrequency denervations for low back ‘nerve root’ and neck pain.
• epidurals for pain and stenotic pain;
• nerve blocks and pulsed radio-frequency treatment for neuropathic pain;
• soft tissue, muscle, and joint injections;
• sympathetic nerve blocks for complex regional pain syndromes after surgery or trauma
   
• Access to the multidisciplinary Pain Management Programme including: Medical Consultant, Clinical Health Psychologists, Physiotherapist and Nurse Specialist

Pain Management Programmes (PMP)

After referral, patients are invited to attend an introductory session. At a multi-disciplinary assessment the patient and clinicians will decide together whether PMP represents the best next step in the patient’s treatment pathway. After this, the patient may attend an appropriate programme.

Outcomes include increased levels of fitness and physical function, less reliance on medication and aids, improvement in mood and relationships, and fewer contacts with primary and secondary care health services.

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Pain Management Service,
Nightingale House,
St Peter’s Hospital

Telephone: 01932 722730 (and choose option 4)

Our Clinical Team

The consulting team in the department are:

	Dr Rose BLOCK GMC: 3108516 Consultant Pain Specialist Abdominal pain, pelvic pain Neuropathic and spinal pain Chronic pain assessment and treatment	SPH Clinics: Mon and Tues am WEY Clinics: Thurs am (alt weeks)
	Dr Giancarlo CAMILLIERI GMC: 6025686 Consultant in Anaesthetics and Pain Medicine MDT Lead for Spine and Pain Chronic pain General adult anaesthetics
	Dr Rajib DUTTA GMC: 5194841 Consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Management Specialises in Regional Anaesthesia for Upper limb and Lower limb procedures. Uses Multimodal and multidisciplinary approach in Pain Management. Treats patient with back and leg pain and member of MDT spinal team. Is part of MDT Gynaecology and Colorectal team in managing pelvic pain.
	Dr Ian HART GMC: 4111603 Consultant in Anaesthetics and Pain Medicine MSK Associate Divisional Director Pain Specialty Lead Anaesthesia for trauma patients
	Dr Andy KING GMC: 3580774 Consultant in Pain Medicine Chronic pain assessment and treatment Multidisciplinary rehabilitation for pain Education and assessment of pain conditions	SPH Clinics: Mon am, Tues am, Fri am (alt weeks)

Specialist / Consultant Nurses

Offers a variety of services to complement the medical consultants and other members of the interdisciplinary team. This includes the following: 8 nurse led clinics per week across site providing:

• Review appointments to advise on further care and medication plans
• Analgesic medication reviews
• Support to develop a self management approach to managing persistent pain
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS)

The aim is to relieve the patients’ pain and disability, but where relief of pain is not possible then our aim is to provide appropriate support and advice to help the patient manage and cope with their pain.