Persistent

Pathway

It can sometimes be challenging to know which people to refer where, for persistent pain management. Given the large number of people living with persistent pain, most will be managed in primary care, however when people need extra support can be referred to services such as link workers, exploring peoples wider health challenges or Sheffield Talking Therapies.

Referral to the Sheffield Pain clinic

The pain clinic is a highly specialised service designed to help patients with long standing pain problems (persistent pain). 

The overall principles include, where possible, reducing an individual’s pain directly (with medication and occasionally injections if appropriate) and, most importantly, aiming to help all patients cope with the effects of pain to allow them to live better. 

This involves increasing a patient’s understanding of the nature of their individual pain – more specifically, that pain does not equal tissue damage, but represents a malfunction in the nervous system which allows a sensation of pain to be felt repeatedly.

In addition, it is important to place the patient’s pain in context with their inability or difficulty in doing normal activities, and explain how anxieties and low mood that often accompany this situation are an important part of their problem. 

The service uses the skills of a number of different healthcare professionals to assess and treat the patients pain in a combined team approach. At STH Pain Clinic, there are consultant anaesthetists – who have specific training in pain medicine – senior pain physiotherapists, a senior pain occupational therapist, senior pain nurses, clinical psychologists and a consultant psychiatrist. Assessment and treatment for an individual patient may be carried out by several of the above people. STH Pain Clinic also runs a weekly multidisciplinary team meeting attended by representatives from all the above specialities. It allows team members to discuss and better help patients with the most difficult pain problems.

One treatment route within the pain clinic is the pain management programme.  To see what this involves, please refer to the patient facing section.