Acute pain service

The acute pain service role is to provide safe and effective pain management to patients undergoing surgery. The service is led by a consultant anaesthetist and run by nurses on a day to day basis. After your surgery one of the acute pain nurses will visit you to make sure that your pain is well controlled. Our aim is to provide good postoperative pain control with minimal side effects to help speed your recovery after surgery.

Purpose of the acute pain service

• We provide specialist pain management advice, support and guidance to staff on how best to manage your postoperative pain. 
• We have developed an education programme to increase nurses’ and doctors’ pain management knowledge.  
• We use up to date postoperative pain management systems to control your postoperative pain such as:
• Oral analgesics (tablets that you can swallow): This is the simplest way of taking pain killers. The tablets or medicine will vary in type and form and will be given at regular intervals throughout the day. You should let your nurse know if you need extra analgesia before the next tablet or medicine is due.
• Intramuscular or subcutaneous injections: This involves a nurse giving you an injection about every three to four hours. It is a common method of pain control after surgery.  You should let your nurse know if your pain returns before the next injection is due as the dose or interval may need adjusting. 
• Intravenous patient controlled analgesia (given into a vein through a special drip): This allows you to demand small amounts of pain relieving medication by pressing a button on a handset, which is attached to a pump. The pump is programmed so that you get the right amount of pain killer, but you are not in danger of having too much pain relieving medication.
• Patient controlled epidural analgesia: This involves a small plastic tube being placed in your back close to the spinal cord. The tube is connected to a pump. The pump is programmed to give you a set rate of drugs every hour. If you experience extra pain then you will also be able to demand a small amount of extra drugs by pressing the button on a handset. The pump is programmed so that you cannot give yourself an overdose.

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