"Excellent, patient centred care at Chronic Pain Service in Leeds Seacroft Hospital"

I attended an appointment at outpatients at Seacroft Hospital today, to see my consultant for an initial assessment by the Chronic Pain Service here in Leeds.

Despite feeling very vulnerable after filling in a huge questionnaire that really encouraged me to think about the pain I live with, and feeling sad that this is how my life is, I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent care I was given.

The Consultant (who introduced herself and stood up to shake my hand, immediately signalling respect) was very thorough in her questions and in her examination. She apologised for the inevitable pain caused by the examination, which in itself is sadly rare.

We had a great conversation to examine all the options and she referred both to the NICE guidelines for this, her specialism, and to other research that existed in support of my experiences. I appreciated feeling that she valued my experiences and treated me with enough respect to share her clinical reasoning with me.

We discussed both medication and non-medical interventions, and I was grateful that she acknowledged the limits of medication in mediating my pain, whilst still offering to adjust the balance of medications to get a better management of the pain in place.

At the end of the appointment, she dictated the letter back to the GP right there, with me sitting with her. She used the opportunity to double-check both my understanding of the next steps, and to check my agreement with the options we had decided on with regard to my treatment. By behaving in the way she did, demonstrating the ease at which she could run her clinic and take regard for the choices, fears, preferences and unique situations of her patients, I felt valued and validated in my experience of chronic pain.