Acute Pain Service

The acute pain service is an inpatient service only. The acute pain team provides safe and effective pain management for patients during their hospital admission across the Trust.

Our Aim
Our aim is to provide post-operative pain control with minimal side effects and to reduce pain to an acceptable level for each individual patient.

Our Service

• The clinical nurse specialists assess and review patients daily throughout the hospital
• We help ensure patients receive multimodal analgesia to maximise their pain relief and minimise side effects
• We oversee the use of modern analgesic techniques including epidurals, regional anaesthetic infusions and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA)
• The team conducts two ward rounds a week to review routine patients and ward referred patients who need our specialist input
• We also provide an acute pain follow up clinic for patients who have been discharged on short term analgesia following surgery. Consultations or telephone follow-ups may also be offered to patients who require further pain management
• The service also provides regular education and teaching to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. This includes delivering the Essential Pain Medicine module from the Faculty of Pain Medicine
• The service has designated link nurses to cascade information and training to the wards. We facilitate quarterly link nurse educational meetings on topical subjects.

The Chronic Pain Service is an outpatient pain service, located at Whitegate Drive Health Centre.

If you require access to the Chronic Pain Team, please see your GP for a formal referral.