About The Pain Clinic

This information is for patients who have been referred to the Pain Clinic.

Pain Clinic Services 

Your appointment

Pain that persists can be distressing and disabling. You have been referred to the pain service because your pain is interfering with your ability to function effectively. We are a team of specially trained healthcare professionals who are skilled in supporting patients with pain to manage their symptoms. Most of the treatments we offer will help about one third of patients only and will reduce the intensity of pain but not take it away. Response to treatment varies from person to person, even if they seem to have the same symptoms. Your pain specialist will make an assessment of you and of your pain and decide which treatment or treatments might be helpful in your case. 

Injections may help some individuals but they often only have a limited effect and should be part of a multidisciplinary management programme. A decision on an injection will only be made after a full discussion with the patient if it is considered appropriate.

With support, patients can start to exercise, engage with hobbies and resume work (full or part-time). Our aim in this service is to help people move forward and for this reason it is unhelpful for us to disable our patients by saying they are unfit to work.

Our service works to support you and your GP to manage your pain. The treatments we offer are familiar to your GP and your GP will be experienced in managing day-to-day queries about your pain treatment. Your pain specialist may make a pain treatment plan for you and your GP to follow together. Your GP will be able to deal with queries and if you have a problem with medication you can also discuss this with 
your pharmacist.

Service objectives

• Provide a multi-professional patient specific assessment of your pain and out in place an individual management plan. 
• We help you to manage your pain enabling you to lead a more normal life with reduced disability. 
• Increase social and physical functioning. 
• Promote independence and wellbeing for patients through the provision of structured self-management support. 

In our team we have the following staff: 

• Consultants in pain medicine.
• Consultants in neurosurgery.
• Specialist physiotherapists.
• Specialist Pain Nurses.
• Clinical psychologists.
• Pharmacists.

You will not necessarily see more than one specialist, but as one of the major pain centres in the UK, we are able to adopt a multidisciplinary approach for those patients who need it. 

Can you keep your appointment?

If you cannot attend your appointment please phone and tell us as soon as you can. We can rearrange your appointment and offer your old appointment to another patients. 

Phone: 0117 414 9937

If you do not attend your appointment or cancel on the day of the appointment, we will have to discharge you back to your GP. You will then have to ask to be referred again.

Please let us know if you change your:

• Name.
• Address.
• Phone number.
• GP. 

Preparing for your appointment

Please think about the following things and write them down to bring to your appointment: 

• Have you attended a Pain Clinic before? If you have please write down the name of the Pain Clinic, the year you attended, and the name of the doctor you saw.
• A list of all the medicines (if any) you take, even they are not for pain. 
• A list of all the medicines you have tried for pain.
• A list of all the other treatments you have tried for pain e.g. acupuncture, TENS, physiotherapy.
• You could use a diagram to mark where in your body you feel pain.
• Have you had to change, reduce, or stop any of your activities (including exercise, socialising, housework, leisure etc.)? 
• As a consequence of living with pain, people often experience feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety and/or low morale. How would you say you were at the moment in terms of emotions or mood?

Further management

Management of your pain will be discussed at your appointment. You will be given a blue form to take to the reception desk to make an appointment for further treatment if this is appropriate. If you are referred to the Pain Management team an appointment for an assessment will be sent to you in the post.

Comments

We want to know what we are doing well and what we ought to be improving. Please help us to provide a service that matches what our patients need. There is a comments box in the waiting area. You can also speak to a member of staff if you wish to make a comment about the service you have received. 

© North Bristol NHS Trust. This edition published February 2024. Review due February 2027. NBT002044