Preparing for your appointment

What will happen during your first appointment? 

We will use your referral, as well as any other relevant information available to us, to tailor the first appointment to what might be helpful for you.  

• You will be seen by a member of the pain team. The aim is to get to know you and how you experience pain. The aim is to work out whether we are the right service for you and how we might support you to live better with pain. This is usually done by a physiotherapist, although we might ask other clinicians to see you where we think this would be helpful.   

• One of our chronic pain physiotherapists might conduct a physical examination to understand your pain (we will always get your consent before doing this). Please note physical examinations are not always needed but your clinician should talk about this with you.  

• Discuss functional rehabilitation (getting your body as fit and strong as it can be). 

• Talk about brain retraining and how the nervous system can change in response to pain. 

• Talk about how pain impacts on you (sleep, thoughts, feelings, relationships, work etc.). 

• Discuss stress reduction techniques like mindfulness. 

• Talk about medicines. 

• Discuss how psychological techniques can help you manage pain. 

• Explore Pilates or yoga. 

• Talk about your suitability for group-based rehabilitation (Pain Management Programmes). 

• Suggest further tests or opinions, including whether scans or injections might or might not be helpful.  

• Signpost you to other organisations or support groups that may help you manage pain or other aspects of your life. 

• Talk about referring you to other members of our team. 

 

Tips to help you get the most from this appointment

• Be open minded and try to take on board any new ideas about pain and how to manage it. 

• Answer any questions honestly and don’t be afraid to ask our clinicians questions.  

• Don’t be afraid to tell us if a strategy we suggest isn’t working or is difficult for you (this will help us change things, so they are more likely to work). 

• Remember you can write things down if you like and if you have questions write those down before you come so you don’t forget anything. 

• Wear comfortable loose-fitting clothes – this will make it easier for us to examine you if needed. 

• Think about what you might like to get from our service.  

 

Completing our questionnaires 

At different time points in your treatment with us, we might ask you to complete questionnaires to help us understand your pain and how it affects you. These questionnaires cover all aspects of the biopsychosocial approach and can add to any discussion or examination that our clinicians will engage you with. These are an important part of evaluating progress and understanding your baseline, so it is important that you answer them fully. Do not spend too long thinking about each answer, just go with your best guess. Please try to answer all questions as not answering can invalidate the answers. 

We also use these questionnaires as part of routine service evaluation and to evidence that what we offer patients can work to improve different aspects of their pain experience and quality of life.  

Please remember to return your completed questionnaires as directed.