Your Team

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A unique blend of professions from across a broad spectrum of clinical fields within Pain Management blended with Patient Champions and community leaders

Clinical Psychologists and Psychotherapists

The role of the Psychologist/Psychotherapist in pain management is to help people to address the changes in mood, thinking patterns, activity levels, relationships and sleep that regularly accompany persistent pain.

Together with the multidisciplinary team, our Psychologists/Psychotherapists offer pain management programmes that aim to help people to live rich, full and meaningful lives despite their pain. They can also offer individual therapy to people with specific needs that cannot be addressed in a group environment.

Our experienced Psychologists/Psychotherapists offer consultation and training to the wider multidisciplinary team and to outside agencies, promoting psychological approaches to pain management and offering psychological insight into patients who present with complex psychosocial needs.

Advanced Clinical Practitioner

An Advanced Clinical Practitioner may be a specialist Occupational Therapist/Physiotherapist/Nurse who has experience working with persistent pain. They will offer a comprehensive assessment of your physical wellbeing and will try to provide a clear understanding of your pain problem. Together, you will develop a plan that will help you to manage your pain. This is likely to include exercise, self-management strategies, advice and signposting to other resources. The goal is to enable you to improve your quality of life and function despite the presence of pain.

Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapist

The role of an Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapist is to offer an expert physical assessment of you as a whole person experiencing pain. They will help you to develop a treatment plan that will include a comprehensive understanding of your pain. They will address any misunderstandings about pain and will help you to engage in pain management strategies that may include activity-based goal setting, pacing, and signposting to other services that might be helpful for you.

Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapists, along with the rest of the pain service team, will work jointly with you to empower you to explore living well despite the pain being present (this doesn’t mean pain won’t fully go away, it might, although the reality is for many it doesn’t. It is instead taking it out of the driving seat), so that you can do what is meaningful to you and fully interact with life again.

Clinical Pharmacist

The role of the Clinical Pharmacist is to provide expert advice on medicines to the multidisciplinary team within Connect Health pain services, to other clinicians involved in pain management and to the patients that we serve. Through a clinical consultation role, they ensure that medicines are optimised, so as to maximise patient gain and minimise patient harm e.g. from high dose opiate use. Our Clinical Pharmacists can administer reduction programmes and address polypharmacy issues – deprescribing where appropriate in tandem with signposting individuals to other therapies that may benefit them.

Accelerated Development Programme in Pain [ADPP]

‘Patient Experts’

The ADPP will be a programme and platform that provides education, evidence, support, well-being and opportunity for those patients that are looking to live well with pain and help others in the future. You may be a patient that is currently living well with pain and are keen to help others on that journey. Or you might just want to better understand how living well with pain can help improve life for yourself and others.

Click here to apply to the ADPP

Watch Pete Moore, one of our Patient Experts, discuss his journey and who will be involved in the teaching on our ADPP

Ann Parkinson

Job Title: Neurological & Pain Specialist Physiotherapist and Coach Within this service.

I am an Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapist in Pain. I have worked in a hospital as junior rotational physiotherapist, the community as a senior stroke specialist physiotherapist, and private practice as a neurological & pain specialist physiotherapist and coach.

I specialised as a neuro physio first and then in pain. The pain specialism journey began with my own experience of persistent pain. I am passionate about helping people with pain do what they love, move with more ease and live well.

Three words that describe why I work in Persistent Pain making a difference.

What is your favourite activity/hobby? My favourite activities are yoga and photography, especially when combined with being outdoors.

Donna Gormley

Job Title: APP I have a varied Physiotherapy background as I have worked in the NHS, professional sport specifically football at club and international level and at all levels of rugby league, ballet, military RAF and army, private clinics and a private hospital.

I have 2 masters degrees with distinction in sports medicine and sports biomechanics, a post graduate diploma in musculoskeletal Physiotherapy with merit.

I have just been awarded a postgraduate certificate in the clinical management of pain with distinction. I’m also a member of the MACP which is the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists.

My areas of interest are persistent pain and complex musculoskeletal problems.

Three words that describe why I work in Persistent Pain Make a difference.

What is your favourite food? Crisps in particular beef monster munch and frazzles.

What is your favourite activity/hobby? Gym – spin, bootcamp, burn and circuits. I’ve just started to lift weights although only small weights at the moment.

What animal would you be and why? A golden eagle as that was the house that I was in at primary school

Becky Robinson

Job Title: Physiotherapist I was born and bred in Lincoln and qualified as a Physiotherapist at The University of Northumbria in 2002.

Since qualifying I have worked in a number of different clinical settings in both the NHS and private sectors in Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire.

Alongside work, I completed my Master’s degree in Pain Science and Management from Keele University in 2017. I returned to Lincoln in 2016 to set up a private physiotherapy clinic with my partner Phil.

I have also enjoyed lecturing on Pain modules at Lincoln MSc Physiotherapy Pre-Reg course.

Three words that describe why I work in Patient Persistent Pain Patient-centered, Empowering others/Empowerment, Promoting independence

What is your favourite food? Salted Popcorn

What is your favourite activity/hobby? Travel and discovering new places, oh and live music.

What animal would you be and why? It has to be a bird as it means I can fly, travel quickly around the world and escape winter to warmer climates

Joanne Golightly (but I prefer Jo)

Job Title: Senior Physiotherapist I trained as a physiotherapist in Adelaide, Australia after deciding I wanted a change from sitting at a desk all day working in IT. I had the great pleasure of learning pain science from David Butler and Lorimer Moseley as an undergraduate student – their sessions were always entertaining and thought provoking.

I initially worked with children with disabilities before deciding I needed to gain further skills in musculoskeletal physiotherapy.

I was fortunate to secure a job at a clinic which was owned by a chronic pain specialist, so I got a good mix of musculoskeletal and persistent pain clients.

My second love in physiotherapy is women’s health, which includes pregnancy and postnatal work, pelvic floor and pelvic pain – a very distressing kind of persistent pain which is not talked about enough.

I moved back to England last year for family reasons and am excited to be working at Connect Health in this very proactive persistent pain service.

Three words that describe why I work in Patient Persistent Pain Turning lives around

What is your favourite food? Sesame crusted pan-fried salmon with roasted Mediterranean vegetables

What is your favourite activity/hobby? Walking – it helps clear the mind and is good for the body

What animal would you be and why? A mountain goat – I would love to spend my days wandering on the mountains taking in the fresh air and the views. I’m not sure about eating grass though!

Crenguta L. Asandei

Job Title: HCPC Chartered Clinical Psychologist A rich experience of working in NHS mental health services.Interested in using theories informed by Psychoanalysis, Gestalt, Mindfulness, but also Philosophy.

Three words that describe why I work in Patient Persistent: Pain I work with Persistent Pain because of the results I have seen so far in this work.

At Connect, we all share the same passion for delivering the best service, treatment and patient experience we can. You could say it’s in our DNA to help people improve their quality of life.