Referral to a Pain Specialist

Referral to a specialist consultant in pain medicine is generally made through your General Practitioner, your Consultant Surgeon or Physician or perhaps your Physiotherapist.

Pain specialists provide expertise in acute pain or chronic pain or both. When addressing issues related to Acute pain we are also referring to Acute Cancer pain, while Chronic pain refers to Chronic Non-Cancer pain.

A referral letter can be forwarded to your local pain clinic/pain consultant requesting either a public or private appointment, if available. This referral letter should provide details of your current pain problem, pain location and duration, results of recent x-rays or scans, details of any previous pain interventions or treatments and also current pain medications where relevant.

Waiting times vary from several weeks to several months, depending on the pain clinic/private rooms waiting list. Referral letters are reviewed and prioritised by the pain consultant and appointments are then allocated according to diagnosis and apparent urgency. Cancer patient pain referrals are screened by the Pain Consultant urgently (within 24 hours where possible) and appointments are allocated as soon as possible.