Chronic pain

For people suffering from long-term persistent or chronic pain, we offer clinics and a range of treatments. We also have a Centre of Pain Education (COPE) providing non-pharmacological programmes to help patients cope better with their pain.

Clinics

Our consultants run four to five outpatient clinics a week at St Helier Hospital and one clinic on alternate weeks at Epsom Hospital.

At the clinics, we see both new and follow-up patients, start drug treatments, list patients for pain relief injections or refer to the pain management programme as appropriate.

Treatments

A number of treatments are available, including:

Analgesic drug management
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS)
Acupuncture
Neural blockade (nerve blocks)
Specialist psychological support.

Key staff

Dr Sara Bustamante, Consultant

Dr Martin Gardner, Consultant

Dr Roshan Thawale, Consultant

Dr Claudia Lazarus, Associate specialist

Contact us

Please help us to get you through to the right person who can help you:

If you need to change an acupuncture appointment please contact the Outpatient Booking Centre on 020 8296 2000 ext. 2968 and ask for Acupuncture bookings
If you need to speak to a nurse about your medicine or you are having problems since you had your pain treatment (such as an injection or an epidural), please contact our Advice Line on 020 8296 2000 ext. 2101 and leave a short message, including your name and contact number
If you need to speak to someone about an appointment in clinic, please contact the pain clinic administration team on 020 8296 3868
If you are a patient who has attended COPE or you have a query about the COPE programme, please call the COPE team direct on 0208 296 3900.

Useful links

Healthtalk
Healthtalk is an award winning website where you can read about and listen to other people’s experiences of living with pain.

Pain Toolkit
The Pain Toolkit gives you practical advice and ideas about pain management

British Pain Society
The largest professional organisation for pain management in the UK. There is a useful section on their website for people living with pain

Living with Chronic Pain
Dr Neil Berry is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who works with people with chronic pain. He has produced a package of advice for coping with pain. This can be bought in the form of a CD or downloaded free of charge from the website.

Websites with information on managing pain and offering support:

Pain Concern

Arthritis Care

Living with pain