About the Pain Control Service

The multidisciplinary pain management service at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), established in 1991, was the first in the UK and continues to be a nationally and internationally recognised leader and innovator in the field of clinical management, teaching & training, education and research.  The service sees 2,500 children and young people with acute and chronic pain annually, in 10,000 face-to-face and telephone consultations.

If you are a healthcare professional, please also visit our dedicated pain management section for healthcare professionals.

Our aim is to lead, promote and facilitate good practice in pain management for children and young people.

The pain control team puts interdisciplinary practice at the heart of its service. We work closely with other teams throughout GOSH to facilitate pain management and to encourage good practice in the fields of pain assessment and treatment.

Inpatients who are referred to us with pain following surgery or who require more complex pain management will be visited by the pain control service daily. We work closely with the wards to ensure children and young people at GOSH receive the best possible care for their pain.

Outpatients can be referred to the children's chronic pain management clinic and will be seen by our outpatient team, who will conduct a thorough assessment with a view to putting an appropriate pain management plan in place.

Find out more about your your appointment at the chronic pain clinic and what will happen on the day.

If you would like to find out more about acute or chronic pain, download our information leaflets.

If you are a healthcare professional and you are considering referring a patient to us, please read the guidance on conditions we treat and how to refer.

In order to ensure the best treatment for children and young people with acute and chronic pain, at GOSH and elsewhere, we work with other services to teach and train healthcare professionals about paediatric pain. We work with Practice Educators at GOSH to oversee the training of ward staff in pain management techniques. We also work with external organisations such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Anaesthetists to promote more effective chronic pain management in the community.

We strive to ensure that children and young people seen at GOSH get the best possible outcome following treatment. We have a number of systems in place designed to ensure best practice and we will be continually monitoring inpatient and outpatient outcomes. We are also part of the Paediatric PROM&PREM Network.

The Pain Control Service is active in research and some of our members are part of the UCL Paediatric Pain Research Group. Find out about our research and recent publications.

Find out more about the Pain Team.