The Complex Pain Team works mainly with patients admitted to hospital who have pre-existing persistent pain, as well as patients with acute pain who have more complex needs requiring multidisciplinary team (MDT) input or complex pharmacological management.
Our aim is to improve people’s quality of life and manage pain, whether in hospital or integrating back to living in the community. We support this by bringing the skills of the outpatient pain multidisciplinary team to the bedside. We do not accept outpatient referrals.
Our multi-disciplinary team (MDT) consists of consultants, advanced nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists, clinical psychologists, advance physiotherapy practitioners and an administrator. Some of the outcomes we monitor include improvement to patients’ quality of life, reduction in the number of admissions, opioid use and lengths of stay in hospital.
The Complex Pain Team works across sectors so a patient leaves UCLH with a comprehensive pain management plan, for both hospital and in the community. For this reason, we have a small capacity to offer a limited amount of outpatient appointments after discharge.
Our team works around the patient putting their needs first. This often involves joining or leading multi-disciplinary/multi-agency meetings about patients with complex needs and liaising with health and social care, mental health, and third-party organisations in the community.
The team is involved in several education initiatives across the Trust and in the community aimed at supporting clinicians to increase their confidence and understanding of chronic pain and its impact on their patients.