Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s Survivors of Torture Clinic Wins at Prestigious Grünenthal Pain Awards
23 May 2016
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s survivors of torture pain clinic has won first prize in the 2016 Grünenthal Pain Awards, an innovative awards programme which aims to recognise excellence in the field of pain management and significant improvement in patient care.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s survivors of torture pain clinic has won first prize in the 2016 Grünenthal Pain Awards, an innovative awards programme which aims to recognise excellence in the field of pain management and significant improvement in patient care.
This service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust offers a one stop clinic for survivors of torture that tries to understand the issues these patients face while helping them to access the best treatments and interventions.
The overall award comes with a £10,000 grant, to be used to fund equipment or services used in the management of pain to enhance patient care. Grants are awarded to the entrants that the Judging Panel, consisting of experts in pain, with an interest in commissioning pain services and patients, believe contribute most to the well-being of patients.
Dr Susan Childs, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said: “Winning this award is a fantastic achievement and recognises the important work that our clinic does in providing support to survivors of torture. With the £10,000 grant we are looking to recruit some additional psychiatry support which will allow us to provide further assessment for patients referred to us with chronic pain. Chronic pain often masks psychosis and schizophrenia and more in-depth psychiatric issues. We also want to explore some compassionate focussed therapy models (as used with trauma patients) to see if we might use these whilst helping patients access pain management strategies.”
Dr Bianca Kuehler, Specialty Doctor in Pain at Chelsea and Westminster and the medical doctor in the team added: “This award will also allow us to look at outcome evidence and by publication of this clinic and further promotion of such a service we will provide a voice for this often unheard patient group in the pain community, enabling other services to provide similar services”.