Community Pain Service

You can access our service if your GP is based in the Central Lancashire area. Your GP or any moving well clinician within the Rheumatology or MSK services can refer you to the community pain service. Once we have received the referral letter we will offer you an appointment with a member of the pain team or a group introductory day to the service. This may be a face to face appointment or a 'telehealth' consultation.

To get the most out of your first appointment take some time to consider the following

• What are you hoping to get out of attending the community pain service.
• Under what circumstances did your pain start?
• How has it changed over time?
• What investigations or treatments have you had for your pain?
• How does the pain feel and how does it behave? What triggers the pain and what eases the pain.
• What do you believe to be the cause of your pain?
• How is your general health?
• List all your medications including the dosage and frequency of all medications.
• You may require a physical examination. Please wear clothes that are comfortable to wear and easy mobilise in.

If you are sent pain questionnaires please complete them and send back before your appointment. If you are sent information videos please watch them.

Your clinician will inform you about the treatment options available. They will discuss the pros and cons of each intervention. Finally we will support you in making the decision that it right for you.  

The Community Pain Service is a group of clinicians and support staff that work closely with you to diagnose your pain condition, and develop a shared management plan. This is a list of people you may meet.

Physiotherapy

The role of our physiotherapists is to help people to make sense of their persistent pain. At the initial assessment they will explore with you the history of your pain as well as how it impacts on your ability to move. They will also complete a physical assessment. They support people to understand the strengths and ability of their body. Physiotherapists traditionally use exercise to facilitate a return to important activities and to maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle. Physiotherapy in pain management is different to traditional physiotherapy in that it incorporates the biopsychosocial model into the approach. This means that the physiotherapist works closely with all the pain clinicians on the team to ensure the best possible outcome for the long term. Graded exposure to movement is key to managing and reducing pain. Pain specialist physiotherapists can support you in understanding your pain, getting started with exercise and staying active for life.

Medical

Our doctor’s role is to make sure there is a good understanding of the medical issues relating to pain, to ensure we’re not missing anything worrying, and to also help guide how best to move forward with treatment. Other non-pain related medical conditions may have an impact upon rehabilitation, so we aim to understand this too. Understanding why we have pain can be important, but sometimes there is no clear diagnosis or indeed cure. Often, a few things can be playing a part in pain; this can explain why treatments can sometimes partly work. Education around pain, and pain research, is one of the interests shared by many of us in the team (and why you may be given the occasional questionnaire!)

Clinical Nurse Specialists

Our friendly Clinical Nurse Specialists work closely with all of the team to provide care to our patients. Like other members of the team they are highly experienced and dedicated to helping people make sense of their pain and explore how all areas of their lives may be affected by it. The Clinical Nurse Specialists are often your first point of contact with the team as they conduct your Initial Telephone Appointment to help you learn more about what to expect during your Pain Management journey. Their roles are based around providing education and giving realistic, up to date advice and support.

Occupational Therapy

Our occupational therapist explores the activities that make up daily life, for example personal care, washing, dressing, domestic tasks, work and leisure. She can work with you to develop an action plan to enable you to participate more fully in the tasks you wish to undertake. A variety of methods may be used to achieve this including pacing, goal setting, education, communication, mindful relaxation work and provision of adaptive equipment where required.

Clinical Psychology

Experiencing pain can affect people not only physically but emotionally as well. Conversely, pain can also be positively affected by the psychology of the individual, their situation/personal circumstances they are in and by other treatments. Our psychologist aims to have useful conversations with people to find out what they want to be different in their lives, despite their pain, and to think with them about coping, and uncovering their strengths and resources. The hope is to help people to live as well as possible despite the pain. It works best when people are willing and ready to take an active part in making changes.

Pharmacy

We know that medication is one of the many tools we have to help us manage our pain. Our pharmacist may see you to discuss your medication in more detail with you and in order for you to understand the role of medication in managing long term pain. This may be to discuss concerns you may have or that your GP may have, to formulate and optimise your medication plan, to explore medications that might help or to reduce and stop medications that might no longer be effective or that could be causing side effects. The pharmacists works closely with other clinicians in the team to help manage your medication between them. The pharmacist will communicate with your GP regularly to ensure they are happy to continue with any changes we recommend and to keep them informed of the plan going forward. The pharmacist offers a range of face to face and telephone appointments at different times during the week.