Pain Service

Dr Catherine James – Consultant

Dr Allister Dow – Consultant

Dr Daniella Tonucci – Consultant

Dr Lorraine Nanke – Principal Clinical Psychologist

Dr Fiona Seaman-Thornton – Clinical Psychologist

Saira Mirza – Specialist Pain Physiotherapist

Karen Cox – Lead Clinical Nurse Specialist

Daniel Hull – Clinical Nurse Specialist

Tanya Carr – Clinical Nurse Specialist

Sarah Crossley – Clinical Nurse Specialist

Avril Etherington – Medical Secretary

Natalie Brotherton – Medical Secretary

As a team, we pride ourselves on offering patient centred care to help people live a fulfilling life despite their pain.

We offer a holistic approach to help you manage your persistent pain.

We aim to help you reduce your symptoms, if possible, and improve your quality of life. Our treatment focuses on your physical and mental health. Our ultimate goal is to live a fulfilling life with the pain.

The inpatient pain service is made up of Clinical Nurse Specialists and Consultant Anaesthetists, many of whom work across the outpatient clinics as well.

We aim to provide a high standard of patient care throughout your inpatient stay.

We cover acute and post-operative pain, as well as supporting patients who have acute pain in addition to ongoing persistent pain problems.

As part of the wider multi-disciplinary team, we are involved in the care of all patients who receive PCA (Patient Controlled Analgesia) or epidurals.

We are also able to provide non-pharmacological interventions such as TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) in the ward area.

We normally run the majority of our clinics from Castle Outpatients (level H) at the Royal Surrey hospital. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the foreseeable future we will be offering telephone calls and video calls, using Attend Anywhere.

Please do not attend the hospital for your appointment.

Initial Appointment

This will be held with one of the pain consultants / clinical nurse specialist. They will discuss your pain and pain medical history. They will then be able to offer advice on a variety of treatment options available. Following this appointment, you may be referred to a different member of the team.

Follow-Up Appointment

You may be offered a follow-up appointment with any member of our multi-disciplinary team, depending on your individual needs. You may also be offered an appointment within our specialist TENS clinic, joint psychology and physiotherapy clinic, or recommended to attend one of our pain management programmes.

TENS Clinic

As part of your journey within the Pain Clinic you may be offered an appointment in the TENS Clinic. TENS is a small, portable, non-pharmacological device which may help to reduce your pain, and be a valuable addition to your pain management ‘toolkit’. In the TENS clinic we show you all the different ways in which you can use a TENS machine and discuss how it would best benefit you.

Click here to access the TENS patient information leaflet.

We currently offer three pain management programmes in the Pain Management Service. We would encourage you to talk to a member of the team if you are interested in attending one of these programmes.

Explain Pain

This workshop offers an introduction to understanding pain, the typical responses to pain in our mind and body, and suggests different resources to help support you with pain management. The workshop is currently in an online format that contains a presentation from staff, and also includes time for questions and answers at the end. We plan to offer face-to-face workshops in the future for anyone who is unable to attend online.

Introduction to Mindfulness for Pain using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (IMPACT)

This 7-week pain management programme aims to help you live a fulfilling life with pain (2 hours per week). The course focuses on strategies which include:

• Finding flexible and creative ways of living well with your pain
• Letting go of old habits which no longer work for you
• Enhancing mindful awareness of your body
• Gently building the five core aspects of physical fitness

This group is helpful for people who would like to consider what works well for them and are curious to explore ways of changing what doesn’t.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction for Pain (MBSR course)

This course offers an 8-week structured, educational teaching of mindfulness meditation in a group setting. Mindfulness is a method for managing stress and long term pain. To support your learning, home practice is required for one hour per day throughout the duration of the course.

Typically, groups are run at the Royal Surrey County Hospital on Friday afternoons between 14.30-16.30.