Referral Acceptance

Pain referrals are prioritised by Senior Medical Officers based on the information contained within. Additional information should be attached where available. The priorisation tool used to triage referrals can be found below under Access Criteria.

All accepted referrals will be seen within a maximum waiting time of 4 months, unless there is a clinical reason for delay.

Referral acceptance is a follows:

Access Criteria:

• For the referral to be graded appropriately please include details of pain presentation, past medical/social/psychological history, medications current and previously tried, psychological presentation, level of function in the home and employment status.
• Drug and alcohol addiction and significant unresolved mental health issues need to be addressed prior to pain referral.
• The Chronic pain service does not provide a paediatric service.  Biomedical referrals will usually only be considered for those 16 years and over.  Inclusion in the Pain Management Programme (PMP) is limited to over 21 years.
• Patient with significant cognitive impairment or decline will not be accepted.
• Our guidelines/policy for acceptance is that the patient is no longer actively seeking treatments or investigations, therefore we do not see people while they are undergoing other treatments so at this stage we will have to decline this referral. 
• Palliative care patients should be referred to more appropriate specialised services.

Local Bay of Plenty Access Criteria for First Assessment (ACA)

Pain referrals are prioritised by Senior Medical Officers based on the information contained within. Additional information should be attached where available. The priorisation tool used to triage referrals can be found below under Access Criteria.

All accepted referrals will be seen within a maximum waiting time of 4 months, unless there is a clinical reason for delay.