A NEW integrated community Pain Service that puts the emphasis on people to manage their own pain is being launched across Oldham this month.
The new joined up ‘patient centred’ service goes live on June 1 and will be delivered by a partnership that includes The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Pennine MSK Partnership and the Psychological Medicine Service at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
People suffering from persistent pain that is hard to manage despite treatment will benefit the most from the new Pain Service, which has an emphasis on supporting people to make informed decisions, manage their care and have an improved quality of life.
The new three-tier service is run by a highly experienced multi-disciplinary team of health professionals who are all specialists in pain, including nurses, physiotherapists, therapists, and clinical psychologists.
The new service will help patients develop strategies for coping with their pain and reduce the distress that can sometimes go along with it. Interventions on offer include one-to-one appointments and group work.
Tier one will be coordinated by the patient’s GP practice and patients will see Community Physiotherapists and Psychological Therapists.
Tier two will be delivered by Pennine MSK Partnership at the Integrated Care Centre in Oldham town centre and at Oldham Community Leisure gymnasiums. All patients will be assessed by a Pain Specialist clinician and a self-help care plan will be developed.
Those with the most complex needs will receive additional care from tier three at The Royal Oldham Hospital, where they will be assessed by a Clinical Psychologist, Liaison Psychiatrist, Pain Consultant and Pain Specialist Nurse.
Paula Bragg, Lead Pain Nurse at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said:“It has been a pleasure to work with our colleagues to develop this new service.
“It has been a longstanding vision and we are all very excited to be part of a new way of working that will have such positive impact on people’s quality of life.”
Dawn Robinson, Directorate Manager for Pain at The Pennine Acute Hospitals, NHS Trust said:“The collaborative partnership has been a great success.
“It is very rewarding to know the new Pain Service will provide an evidenced based, innovative, multi-disciplinary and integrated service for people and their families who have to live with persistent pain.”
Dr Hugh Sturgess, Executive Director at Pennine MSK Partnership, said: “The development of this new integrated pathway has been a very exciting project, but the most important partnership will be with each patient who suffers from persistent pain.
“The service is now designed to deliver the support for each patient tailored to help them to reduce the impact on the quality of their lives of the pain that they live with 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”
