Pain Management

The Pain Management Unit offers treatment to reduce the symptoms of chronic pain.

Contact service

Everyone at some time in their lives will experience pain, and in time, it will improve. Unfortunately for some people it does not.

Regrettably for some painful conditions there is no cure and it will persist for the duration of that person’s life.

The persistent nature of this type of pain can cause many difficulties including; participation in hobbies and social activities, maintaining work, relationships with others, and mood.

This is common for those suffering with chronic pain.

The aim of the pain unit is to improve your life with chronic pain.

Once referred you will be asked to attend for an assessment appointment with either a consultant pain physician or a physiotherapy practitioner specialising in chronic pain. At this appointment you will be asked a number of questions to determine which is the most appropriate intervention for you.

Pain Management Programme

The pain management programme aims to assist people by looking at difficulties affecting quality of life including participation in hobbies and social activities, maintaining work, relationships with others, and mood in more detail, and considering what changes individuals can make to improve things.

The content of each programme, whilst following the same principles, is flexible to meet the needs of each group. The majority of the programme is delivered by a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and a Physiotherapist over 8 two and a half hour weekly sessions (1 session a week for 8 weeks). We also have input from the nursing team with one session dedicated to information on medication.

It should be made clear that the programme will not provide relief from pain and the intention is to improve life with pain.

It is normal for people to be sceptical as to whether improvements in life can occur without pain reduction.

People who do complete the programme typically report the following;

  • that they are more accepting of chronic pain and the interference it has caused
  • that pain is now interfering less with life
  • they are less worried about their pain and activities that increase their pain
  • they can participate more frequently in enjoyable activities
  • they can communicate their needs with others more effectively, and have a better understanding about their pain.

95% of people completing the programme report themselves to be either highly or extremely satisfied with the programme.

The programme is not something everyone with chronic pain is interested in completing, and some do not need to as they already successfully live with pain. For those who are interested, we only require a willingness to attend and participate in trying to achieve this outcome for you.

Pain Management Relaxation sessions online

A series of selected relaxation techniques recorded for the Pain Management department at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals are now available for you to use at home.

Please click here to access these recordings.

www.dbth.nhs.uk/pain-management-sessions

Patient leaflets

Useful resources: 

Content out of date? Information wrong or not clear enough? Report this page.