Outpatient pain management (Chronic Pain) - Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust

The Chronic Pain Service treats and supports patients who have experienced pain for three months or more and is based in the Hutchinson Suite, level 1, at Maidstone Hospital. Your GP can refer you to this service.

Our outpatient clinics are run at both Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals as well as Sevenoaks Community Hospital. All procedures are carried out at Maidstone Hospital.

We help patients with a broad range of chronic pain problems, especially spinal pain, to improve their pain control and quality of life. We assess our patients clinically, but may request tests such as MRI and nerve conduction studies to work out the cause of their pain. We use a holistic approach to pain control, as one method does not work for all.

This could include:

Conservative management – lifestyle advice, pacing, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and medication optimisation
Interventional Treatments – injections can relieve pain and spasm and break the cycle of pain and immobility. We offer a wide range of interventional approaches including Facet Joint Injections, Sacroilliac Joint Injections, Epidurals, nerve root blocks and plexus blocks
Surgical Referral – where necessary we will advise you if surgical referral would be beneficial
Psychological treatments – there is good evidence for the links between good psychological health and pain control. Often talking therapies can reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms and improve coping strategies. We can provide advice and where necessary refer you on for psychological input.

Interventional treatments are performed in our dedicated interventional suite in the Chronic Pain Unit at Maidstone Hospital. They are carried out as day cases with local anaesthetic or light sedation. Procedures are performed under X-ray or ultrasound guidance.

Patient information leaflet

The Chronic Pain patient information leaflet contains:

Information to help you prepare you for your procedure, such as an interventional treatment, at the Chronic Pain Unit
How you will be admitted, and what we will do to make your stay as comfortable as possible
Information on any necessary aftercare

You can also download these informative leaflets:

Information on medication

Please also read the DVLA’s guidelines on driving whilst using prescription painkillers.

Interventional Pain Procedures

Here you can access a series of patient information leaflets, produced by the Faculty of Pain Medicine, to provide information relating to commonly undertaken injections in pain medicine and to answer some questions that patients may have.