Pain Management
Opioids such as morphine, fentanyl and codeine are super strength medications for pain which can be highly addictive. In 2021 there were 4,859 drug related deaths in England and Wales. Approximately half of these deaths involved an opiate. On this page we have some resources to aid clinical decisions on prescribing.
There is a new Opioid Reduction Advice and Guidance service for GPs provided by Somerset Community Pain Management Service. The advice and guidance is for clinicians who are seeking help reducing opioid medication for patients where opiate use is escalating and there is a safety concern.
Please see the Somerset Community Pain Management Service website for patient resources to help them understand and manage their pain.
Please see the Somerset Prescribing Formulary for preferred formulations.
“Skills not Pills” Deprescribing Resources
-Presentations for clinicians
Chronic pain can be really difficult to manage. The patient is suffering and you want to help. Knowing how to help and what support exists can be challenging. As a result, the Somerset Training Hub and SGPET have teamed up with a number of colleagues to produce resources to support clinicians. They have called this work Skills Not Pills. You can access five short presentations (each only 7-17 minutes long) and a patient information leaflet on the work at the SGPET website under Managing Pain – Skills Not Pills.
-Resources for clinicians
Opioids
Opioids Aware is a resource for patients and healthcare professionals to support prescribing of opioid medicines for pain. Tapering and stopping opioids is just one of their many resources.
Somerset Community Pain Decision Aids
NICE Guidance
MHRA Alerts
Practice Prescribing Information
A practice by practice review of the data comparing prescribing to other GP practices in England and Somerset can be found on OpenPrescribing. To help with the review of patients who may be taking > 120mg equivalent of morphine per day, find your practice then click on the link below the chart to see the preparations prescribed.
Dose Equivalents
The BNF updated its equivalences in August 2020, this is reflected in the Faculty of Pain Medicine tables.
Audit Tools
For a set of Emis searches to run this audit please email helen.spry@nhs.net